Celice and Joseph are lying on a beach: both are dead. From its opening scene, "Being Dead" the new novel from English writer Jim Crace, sets the idea of the biographical novel on its head. What seems at first to be a study in describing the process of decay becomes a compeling story of Joseph and Celice's rather ordinary lives. Crace juggles the story of their past and the story of their daughter discovering that her parents are dead Crace told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis the death of his own father 20 years ago inspired the novel .