[In the following review, the critic states that "Akst handles the labyrinthian plot twists deftly, employing a style that is at once literate and funny as he explores contemporary links among food, sex, identity and death."]

Transcending both the usual boundaries of the genre and the standard flaws of first novels, Akst's comic debut [St. Burl's Obituary] begins as a thriller about a journalist who witnesses a mob killing, then slowly evolves into an exploration of identity as experienced by a delightful protagonist who will invite comparisons to John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius Reilly. Burl Bennett is the 300-pound journalistic force of nature who's been banished to the obituary desk at the New York Tribune because of his cantankerous response to being edited. En route to a typically gourmet meal, Burl stumbles into a gangland-style slaying. After a brief period of enduring mob threats—and suffering through a failed stab at romance with fellow Trib reporter Norma Ruifelen—Burl vanishes, heading west to Las Vegas and then to Utah, where he hopes to research his epic poem about the life of Mormon leader Joe Smith. Instead, he becomes the object of affection for a gay Salt Lake City laundromat owner with a fat fetish. Alarmed at his rapidly expanding girth, Burl undergoes stomach reduction surgery, then engages in a spirited affair with a female cultist. When that romance fails, he takes on a new identity and returns to New York, where he attends his own funeral and begins anew his affair with Norma, who remains unaware that her lover is, in fact, Burl. Los Angeles Times reporter Akst handles the labyrinthian plot twists deftly, employing a style that is at once literate and funny as he explores contemporary links among food, sex, identity and death. But the true star here is Burl, whose appetites, charm, intellect and Houdini-like ability to get himself in and out of tight situations will win readers' minds and hearts.