Top ten dead bodies in literature

Jon McGregor is the author of the critically acclaimed If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and So Many Ways to Begin. He is the winner of the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award, and has been twice longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He was born in Bermuda in 1976. He grew up in Norfolk and now lives in Nottingham.

His latest novel is Even the Dogs.

For the Guardian, he named his top ten dead bodies in literature--"stories of lost lives that coalesce around a 'central absence.'"

One entry on the list:

As I Lay Dying William Faulkner

From the opening image of the son building his mother's coffin outside the room where she lies dying, it's clear that this is the work of an uncompromising visionary. Brutal and bleak and tender, full of dark moments and astounding images and basically just as good as everyone says.

Read about the other entries on the list.

As I Lay Dying is one of Roy Blount Jr.'s five favorite books of Southern humor and one of James Franco's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue