When Holly arrives home two hours late for supper, she finds her gay housemate, Marc, dead of a drug overdose. But, after the uproar subsides, Holly discovers Marc has not, in fact, passed over to the other side. His “suicide” was intended to be a carefully staged cry for help made fatal only by Holly’s tardiness. Thereafter, Marc inhabits the kitchen, mainly as a voice inside Holly’s head, while he tries to make sense of his life and gather enough courage to go over to the other side. Holly is a divorced, 30-something actress with a flagging career. She works as a maid while her married lover aspires to write self-help books about relationships in the 1990s. As she struggles to meet her dead friend’s considerable needs and demands, her messy life verges on total chaos.

This is the stuff of sitcoms, My Mother the Car recast as My Housemate the Kitchen. Holz took a risk in hanging her novel on such a hackneyed plot, but the risk pays off. The Other Side succeeds on many levels. This is a funny novel. Holly helps Marc achieve that adolescent fantasy, they’ll-all-be-sorry-when-I’m-gone, by eavesdropping for him at his wake. Except a lot of people aren’t particularly sorry. Holly’s attempts to explain Marc’s presence allow Holz to parody ideas about the afterlife.

Holz doesn’t stoop to superficial stereotypes to get her gags. She never trades on Marc’s sexual orientation for laughs, a temptation many lesser writers would find irresistible. Derek, the married lover, is a genuine schmuck who begins to exploit his relationship with Holly the moment he leaves his wife, making notes for a book about adjustments in post-marital relationships. Derek begs for heavy-handed treatment, but he benefits from Holz’s light touch. Even minor characters such as Holly’s senile father, and Mrs. Bentwood, the housebound, former opera singer Holly cleans for, are fully realized. When Holly’s dead mother’s voice begins to offer advice, the plot seems to verge on overkill (no pun intended), but Holz has a logic which is eventually revealed. Trust her.

Holz takes another risk at the end of the book by interjecting a weighty question. Is a life like Holly’s, a life without clear direction or purpose, worth living? Holly’s answer holds some surprising twists, and again, the risk was worth taking. This is a seriously comedic novel.