Book Review | Family Business by Jonathan Sims

Diya Burman’s life takes a difficult turn when she loses her best friend. Grief has taken hold of her life, costing her job. Then Diya lands a new job at Slough & Sons, where she is tasked with cleaning up after the deceased. As she begins her work, she starts to notice strange things that cannot be ignored. The Sloughs seem to be hiding something, and Diya is determined to uncover the truth. But is this family business more than Diya bargained for?

“We do not disappear after death. Small pieces of our being can remain, persisting in those places that were once so meaningful to us.”

How often do you think about death? For Diya, death is on her mind. She is grieving the loss of her best friend and decides to do something out of character – she becomes a death cleaner. She wants to work in something physical to get her out of her depression and the cleaning job seems to help. But of course, nothing is that simple. She starts to get visions and becomes certain that the people who died all have something in common. I thought the description of the cleaning process was interesting, even if certain parts had me feeling squeamish. While this is just a job for the Sloughs, Diya couldn’t easily turn off her curiosity about the deceased. Despite the misgivings of her co-workers, I thought her compassion was necessary here.

The nightmarish, hallucinatory vibe of Family Business is captivating. I was invested in Diya to find out what was going on. There’s a mystery element where Diya starts investigating the people whose possessions and houses she had cleaned. But something is stopping her, and this resulted in a few creepy scenes! The paranormal element comes into the fore later but I was mostly compelled by the relationship between the characters. The family that Diya works with has secrets, and they are also going through bereavement. The portrayal of Diya’s relationship with her deceased best friend Angie is touching and realistic. The antagonist with the deceivingly normal name Mr Bill wants something only Diya can give. While I wish we get more information about Mr Bill, his scenes are sufficiently disturbing, especially during the explosive ending.

I like the inclusive representation where POC and LGBTQ+ characters are portrayed casually without their identities being used for traumatic purposes. The characters are crafted with care, continuing to haunt the narrative even after their death. I found that the glimpses of the characters’ lives in the things they left behind to be quite moving. It makes me think about my own life, and what I would leave behind.

Diya started the book with a job and ended it with a found family. This is the type of Family Business I could get into.

I received a copy from the publisher for review purposes.

About the author: Jonathan Sims

Photo by Oliver Hale