Suzanne Paola fuses the Tibetan bardo journey with Western epic tradition in ways that are both comic and harrowing. Bardo is the intermediate state after death when the soul wanders through the heavens and the hells while trying to avoid rebirth into samsara - the realm of the material - and reach nirvana. Paola presents a series of this life's bardo experiences: drug use, the refused birth of infertility, the social implications of the female body, even a trip to the fantastic "after-world" of pop culture.