From your local borders to your local morgues

By: Jeremy Bremmer

Posted: 12/4/08

T he recent work by accomplished novelist and first time philosopher George Montgomery has been the first thing that could be described as a philosophical classic for quite a long time. People everywhere have picked up the book due to the controversy and acclaim that has surrounded it since its release.

Montgomery set out to dispel suicide as a relief from the tedium that is life and in doing so eventually came to a completely different conclusion. This is not the first time that this has occurred in the world of the written word - many have set out to disprove certain things and ended up proving them (case and point Jonathon Friese who proved the existence of God accidentally, Titus Andronicus who accidentally proved the existence of a butter alternative and Tim "Cauliflower" Copernicus who proved the inch as a legitimate unit of measurement following a long night at the local pub), however none have ended up in the same predicament as Montgomery, namely a coffin [Reuters] or an urn [AP]. His book originally to be titled Suicide: The Illegitimate Defense eventually became simply Suicide: The Illegitimate Defense, an equally provocative title.

Due to the mystery surrounding the posthumous publication of Suicide: The Illegitimate Defense, the books have simply been flying off the shelves. "We haven't seen people running in to buy anything like this since the fall of the Berlin Wall when East Germans were showing up left and right to buy pornography," Daniel Forster, regional manager of Barnes and Noble, said. Sales are up, but Montgomery's work has also created another problem that he could not have possibly foreseen before his untimely and rather ironic death. The morgues of the United States are simply filling up at an unprecedented level. "We haven't seen people running to the morgue like this since the Great Depression; bankers are here, lawyers, college students, murder victims … Well, I guess they were here before," Jason Firster, regional manager of Jason's Fun Time Morgue, said.

Things have gotten so out of hand that Borders is now giving out a certificate for free admission to a local morgue with the purchase of each copy of Montgomery's masterwork. There has even been talk of opening a morgue of their own. Daniel Forster, coincidentally also the regional manager of Borders put it best when he said, "If people need a morgue we're happy to provide that with the book - we need the money especially if potential customers aren't going to be around for much longer."

However Forster, the regional manager of Scholastic, is not alone in his plans, Montgomery's publisher is also considering putting in a plan to package each copy of the 15-page text with an urn as well as a gift certificate to the local completely un-Catholic cemetery.

While the content of the work itself is under much debate as to its academic worth, many of the reviewers have not managed to get their articles to press before succumbing to the weight of the work and taking up residence in a coffin or urn of their own. This reporter recently bought a copy of his own, complete with a complimentary morgue coupon (thank you very much, Mr. Forster!) and has been reading it with each successive trip to the bathroom (it makes fantastic toilet reading!)

So far, he has surmised that Montgomery's argument is interesting, though a bit superficial, but then again he's hardly gotten through the first paragraph and his son has an important kickball game this weekend.

Following the kickball game in which the Toyota Turtles beat the Play doh Players to a rousing score of 7-2, this reporter resigned and joined the ranks of the urn elite with the passing words of "If only I'd written my review five minutes ago!"