Bye Bye Braverman

In New York City, less than grieving Inez Braverman informs Morroe Rieff that her husband, writer Leslie Braverman, has died suddenly and unexpectedly at age forty-one. Morroe having contact with Inez has never sat well with Morroe's wife, Etta Rieff, in what Inez represents to Morroe in his life before their marriage, in Inez's openly flirtatious manner, and in Morroe always seeming to run to her beck and call. Rather than attend the Sunday funeral in Brooklyn with Inez as was his original thought, Morroe instead, at the last minute, contacts their somewhat mutual but not oft visited friends Barnet Weinstein, Felix Ottensteen, and Holly Levine - all Jewish, all facing some issue in their respective life, and all writers in some form or another in their own right - to carpool to the funeral together in Holly's compact VW Beetle, this plan despite, beyond the issue of the cramped quarters of the car, the four men living in the four different corners of Manhattan. The four men kvetch about their lives on their drive, only infrequently in relation to their friend Braverman, their talk affected by what happens along the way, with the trip itself potentially extended in Morroe only having a scant idea of where in Brooklyn the funeral and burial are being held. The situation has the added effect of Morroe daydreaming about his own mortality and what would be happening with those in his life if he was in Braverman's place, he watching the proceedings as a bystander in he taking on a different persona in each case.