Synopsis

Stanhope Ellis finds himself absorbing the stories of quirky characters who have one thing in common: closeness to death. As he struggles with whether he’s Death Man or a cosmic witness, he meets a wise nurse, Gayathri Das, who helps him navigate the emotional minefield. But will she die, like the others? The unforgettable characters, including several dogs, will captivate you from the first page.

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Guest Post

When I was learning animal communication around 2017, a young man asked for help with Sherloc, his old prize-winning hunting dog. The kid was new to the area, looking for work, and didn’t have time to properly care for the animal. Sherloc was 14 — a total sweetheart. But his hips were shot, and he really couldn’t walk anymore. He scooted here and there, happy and slobbery as a dog could be.

Finally, a neighborhood acquaintance modified an old thrift-shop baby buggy, and this transformed Sherloc’s life. We covered lots of territory around the neighborhood, sometimes at high rates of speed. The old guy loved it, even when dropping off to sleep. It occurred to me that this activity might make a good meet cute, as the act of helping an animal reveals character and attracts those who are similarly inclined. So Sherloc inspired Juniper, an old sighthound in MORTAL WEATHER who sports around similarly, facilitating the love and eventual marriage of Gemma and her Tom.

Juniper loved to go fast, her feathers flying. She had beautiful feathers. And things picked up for Tom and me, too. We talked about everything on those walks. Tom told me that Juniper never liked other women coming around. She’d always pretend to be sick when a woman talked to him. But she liked me right away. We were girlfriends.

I guess it all works because we live for moments like that — zooming along, even when we can’t do it entirely on our own anymore, taking everything in, bringing others together. The caring elevates all:

Tom was never once embarrassed about nursing that dog out in public. Everything Tom and I did had to do with Juniper. She was the everyday something we shared.

About the Author

Among other things, Kevin Patrick McCarthy has been a geothermal geologist, a technical writer, a critic, and a screenwriter. His humor, essays, poetry, and fiction have been widely recognized. “Enough Sky,” the epigraph for Mortal Weather, was Commended by The Poetry Society (UK) in 2014. He is a fourth-generation Coloradoan who now lives in the Pacific with his wife Tricia, and their dog, Nani.

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