Four roommates and a funeral

Norman Rush's novel Subtle Bodies got a lot of pre-pub chatter, in part because he spends a very long time on each of his books, has published only four (he's now about 80 by my figuring) and started late and most important each of his books has been excellent and somewhat monumental - long and complex takes on American expats in Africa, at least in his two previous novels, to be best of my memory - it's been a while. The new book is hadrly monumental - which is fine by me - I'm always looking for great short fiction and novellas in particular, as I think these work very well for discussion in book group. I'm withholding judgment on Subtle Bodies for the moment, but compared with Rush's other works and with the pre-pub buzz it does feel not just small but slight: story is about a group of five college buddies (NYU class of 78) who come together - four of them, anyway - upon a sudden apparently accidental death of their alpha leader. Old friends gathering for funeral is a familiar trope in movies and books, and it's all what the author does with the material. First 60 pages or so of Subtle Bodies set up a few intriguing premises - but I'm not sure if they will flare, ignite, or fizzle. Was the death an accident (riding mower tipping over the edge of a ravine)? What weird role does Elliot (ha!) play in this novel - the friend who's remained closest to the leader of the group and now seems to be controlling everything about the funeral ceremonies? The central character is a West Coast progressive, Ned, who apparently had not seen the dead friend from 20 years or so - this may be because he had lived for some time w/ friend's ex, though it's not clear why that should need to cause a rift. A few of the notes in this novel, so far, seem wrong to me: were these 5 guys really a revered group back in the day, or is their socio-intellectual status all in their mind(s)? Seems to me that 5 guys at NYU who read a lot of books and go to foreign movies and have a general contempt for bourgeois culture would hardly be exceptional. Also, it seems very odd to me that this well-known and very wealthy man dies and the only people who show up at his Catskills estate are the 4 roommates, whom he has barely seen for many years. An undeveloped plot element so far concerns Ned's wife, miffed that he left for the funeral with barely a word (she's angry because it was the time when they were supposed to have sex, as part of their regimen for getting pregnant), who has hopped on a plane to follow him to the scene. Potential for lots of things to go very wrong, and for a mystery to develop - and we'll see. Rush writes a really clean and muscular prose, and I hope he can bring this novel together as it moves along.