When filmmaker and software designer Michael Wohl got an email alerting him of his father’s sudden death in April, 2008, he had no idea of the journey that it would trigger: not only to the obscure Caribbean island where his dad had been hiding out, and where Michael (with his estranged siblings) had to venture in order to bury the man’s body—but also through his own past to search for clues about how his relationship with his father evolved and soured.

In Herschel’s Wake describes Michael’s adventure traveling to that remote locale to handle the remains of his father, Herschel in 2008.

He was joined by his over-educated but under-employed sister, Anais, who was intent on inviting everyone on the island to the funeral and performing a proper Jewish service (despite Michael’s objections to both efforts), and Tobias, his much-younger, half-brother whom Michael hadn’t seen or spoken to in 20 years.

When they got to the tiny isle where Herschel was living, the expats and locals they encountered all knew and loved Herschel—though he went by a different name, and the man they described was totally foreign to Michael and his siblings. Also, the inhabitants were tickled by Michael’s uncanny likeness to his father, which only unnerved him further. 

Michael’s hope to get in and out of the island as quickly as possible was undermined when he and his siblings learn that there was no funeral home, and that on this island—which seemed stuck 100 years in the past—such funerary details are left up to the family. They were left to figure out how to take care of the banal but morbid details of death that most modern Americans are shielded from.  

Despite some small victories, like discovering an ingenious source of wood for the coffin they had to build by hand, and finding a suitable, if unlikely place for the grave, their efforts to lay Herschel to rest were continually thwarted by the island’s undue bureaucracy, folksy customs, and constant, unexpected rain.

There was also a lurid and upsetting secret that Michael discovered upon his arrival, that he felt compelled to hide from his siblings—instead picking fights with them and unconsciously maintaining the exact dynamic with his father that he was trying most to overcome. 

As everything went wrong and they began to wonder if they would ever get the bastard in the ground, they had to confront their complicated relationships, not only with the charismatic but irresponsible patriarch, but also—and perhaps more importantly—with each other.

Finally, at their father’s graveside, as Anais chanted the Kaddish to the bewildered Christian islanders, and the handmade coffin nearly smashed to bits as it was dropped into the poorly dug hole, the three of them came to accept that as much as they may try to deny it, Herschel lives on inside them. And despite the flaws, insecurities, and self-sabotage that held each of them back in achieving their goals, at least they had each other—and if they could stick together, they might just survive.