Three bodies lie in the roomsof a funeral home in aTasmanian town, waiting tobe prepared for burial. Duringher careful reconstruction ofthe remains, the morticianreflects upon her transitionfrom male to female, uponher life, and upon the love she feels for one ofthe men before her.

Steve Holden’s second book rings withelegant prose, fastidious attention to everydetail of a mortician’s trade (and other tradesinvolving cadavers you’d prefer to never haveknown about), and the struggle the maincharacter goes through being a transsexual ina small town. As she tends to the drownedEsterhazen girl, the Kremmer boy’s desecratedremains, and Mr Phillips, beguiling evenin death, the violent world she inhabits –both in the funeral home and outside it – isdiscussed so gently as to be almost tender.

The writing style of Somebody To Love is morefor those who like to invest a leisurely amountof their afternoons in reading than those who,like me, read in patchy increments on thetrain and in the lunchroom and prefer theirbooks to be clear enough to pick up and putdown without needing much time to reflect.

The book has a main character whose thoughtand speech patterns tend to the manneredand meandering, and I found myself rereadingsentences a few times and feeling, occasionally,a little lost within the text. It wouldbe best to avoid this book if you have suffereda recent bereavement, as the gritty truth ofdeath is there on display and is fairly unpleasant.Our protagonist is unreliable in hernarration of events, a technique that remainsvery interesting but occasionally frustrating.Somebody To Love requires effort, but for theright reader, it will be worth it.