The Mourner

The MournerOne day, Martin Gans found himself driving out to the Long Island funeral of Norbert Mandel, a total stranger. A habit of his was to take a quick check of the obit section in The New York Times each day, concentrating on the important deaths, then scanning the medium-famous ones and some of the also-rans. The listing that caught his eye on this particular day was that of Norbert Mandel, although Gans did not have the faintest idea why he should be interested in the passing of this obs...