Pavlov, who later inherits the undertaking job from his father, observes life and death as an outsider, aware he is viewed with superstition as a presence to be feared by both the city’s Muslim and Christian communities. That visceral scene kicks off a body count that rivals Keanu Reeves’ legendary John Wick movie series as Pavlov is initiated into the secretive Hellfire Society, an altruistic sect that cremates the bodies of those who were abandoned by loved ones because of taboos such as homosexuality and atheism. In 1970s civil war-torn Beirut, cleaning up the dead is a thankless but thriving business. Pavlov, the 16-year-old son of a Lebanese undertaker, joins his father in the gruesome task of loading the decimated remains of a cadaver into their hearse. Rawi Hage’s fourth novel, Beirut Hellfire Society, begins with the end of a life.
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