In the not-too-distant future, an American scientist attempting to rid the world of the unspeakable scourge of… red hair (I know, right?) instead stumbles upon a treatment that will effectively halt the physical and mental processes of aging. People who undergo “the Cure” are still mortal; they can die violently or accidentally, and they are not immune to cancer, AIDS, or other virulent infectious diseases. (Indeed, the hero is told upfront “What this cure guarantees is that you will never die a natural, peaceful death.”) But since so many fatal and/or chronic conditions are associated with older age, someone who takes the Cure and is even a little bit careful and/or lucky could, in theory, live for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years.

AWESOME… now what?

A potential “what” is vividly described in The Postmortal, and the scenario author Drew Magary lays out is deeply unsettling, to say the least. The book is cynical and ironic and depressing; it’s also entertaining, thought-provoking, and (in some places) quite funny. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

As the story opens, the Cure is out there, but it hasn’t been legalized yet. The President wants to take things slowly and maybe spend some time considering the implications of essentially bestowing eternal youth on large swaths of the population. But demand is overwhelming, and in any case, an enterprising soul can always get it on the black market.

That’s what our hero and narrator, 29-year-old John Farrell, does. He wants the Cure and he wants it bad, so he uses his connections (he’s a divorce lawyer) to find a doctor who can give it to him. Seven thousand dollars later, he’s Forever Young, and shortly after that, after pro-Cure demonstrations turn violent, the Cure is approved for general use, and before long everyone is getting it.

-- Well, maybe not everyone. A significant minority believes that the Cure is unnatural and that people who have received it are, by refusing to shuffle off this mortal coil in a timely manner, selfish and parasitic drains on an already overburdened Earth’s resources, and some of these people don’t exactly limit their expressions of distaste for Cure-takers to angry blog posts, if you know what I mean. Then there’s the social upheaval, which is considerable. For example, “cycle marriage,” in which a couple promises to stay together for a fixed period of time (“forever” suddenly being considered too daunting a prospect) becomes the norm. The list of capital crimes grows -- what do you do, as a society, with a serial rapist who will undoubtedly pick up exactly where he left off if he’s released from prison, but who could sit in his (badly overcrowded) prison for hundreds of years if something isn’t done? People come up with all sorts of less-than-savory uses for the Cure -- for example, young Thai sex slaves are forcibly Cured so that they can be thirteen forever, and so forth.

Meanwhile, Farrell lives his life, never appearing to age past his late twenties. He falls in love several times, and eventually changes careers, becoming an “end specialist” for a “containment” contractor -- that is to say, he performs assisted suicides on demand for Cure-takers who decide they’ve had enough, and later on he helps rid society of certain undesirable sorts. (His eBay-obsessed boss is one of the funniest and most sharply drawn characters in the book.) The planet begins to strain beneath the demands of the millions of people who just won’t die, resources dry up, and the geopolitical situation begins to deteriorate. Then evidence develops that as smart as Man is, Nature is smarter. And then, shit gets real.

Ironically enough, by the time his luck runs out, Farrell -- who has spent the book outrunning death, and in fact has had several notable near misses -- is around ninety years old, which is a long lifetime but not remarkably so. The message is clear: as Farrell himself says, “You cannot hide from the world. It will find you. It always does.” Furthermore, you don’t really want to. (When a character who has received the Cure unexpectedly develops pancreatic cancer, he reacts with relief and even gratitude.)

This is all very depressing stuff, but the story is told in such a lively and engaging way that I didn’t want to put the book down. (Also, just on a personal note, a lot of the action takes place in my general neighborhood, and I was delighted to learn that, for example, the Containment Specialists’ office is located maybe two miles from my house.) It’s a highly plausible vision of the future that may keep you awake nights -- it did me -- but it’s a chilling, fascinating, absorbing read, and well worth your time.

   -- Kate Nagy