A searingly original story of the tragedies and joys of youth on the verge of adulthood, Song for the Dead captures the turbulence of life for a 17-year-old boy in a haunting and lyrical still frame.
Declan cannot accept the loss of his older brother, Mason. Mason’s suicide note said only: I AM NOT GONE, which tortures Declan with the possibility that his brother ran away, that the footage of the boy jumping from the bridge was someone else, and that somehow Mason is still alive.
For Declan, the possibility is both hope and torture. He wants so badly to believe it that he cannot accept the reality of life without Mason. He seeks to escape the present by taking refuge in the past or running headlong into the future. Mason exists both in the past and in the future, but not in the devastating reality of the present.
Declan can’t move on. Mason seems to be all around him, walking beside him, playing along at band practice, gazing out over the water with him at their old surfing spot on the Jersey shore. A song that Mason wrote is growing in popularity and may become a hit. Someone is sending Declan messages on Instagram, claiming to be Mason. Declan tells himself that it is only a cruel hoax, but the Instagram ghost is aware of secrets known only to Mason.
Could it be true? Could Mason be alive? Declan can reach Mason somehow or manage to let him go if he finishes his brother’s last song.
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