Mrs. Death Misses Death - Salena Godden

 

 

I was dying to read this book which is just as well given its title and its subject matter. My “bookstinct” lured me towards this book. “Bookstinct” is that indefinable feeling that draws you to a book of which you may know little about but you just have this innate feeling that it’s a book for you. It’s not rational, it’s not logical but it’s never failed me.

Mrs. Death Misses Death is one of those books. In truth I put in my blogger request for it months ago but I feared that I was not successful and I would be placing an indie bookshop order sometime soon. My joy, therefore, at unpacking it was indescribable. And I did what I don’t often do. I dropped everything and started to read it.

It’s a remarkable book. It defies description in many ways. Maybe you can call it fiction. Maybe you can call it poetry. Maybe you can call it philosophy. It’s almost like an installation at an art gallery to be experienced, except it’s made of words. Words in abundance. Words of wisdom. Words of insight. Words of comfort. Words that will unnerve you. Words that will make you cry. Words that will make you laugh. Words that will make you think. Words that will make you wonder.

It’s offered as a novel. So we’ll look at it as that. And it is a novel in the true sense of the word novel. The blurb runs thus:-

‘Mrs Death tells her intoxicating story in this life-affirming fire-starter of a novel
Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death, but until now hadn’t met Death in person – a black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen.

Enthralled by her stories, Wolf becomes Mrs Death’s scribe, and begins to write her memoirs. Using their desk as a vessel and conduit, Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity. As the two reflect on the losses they have experienced – or, in the case of Mrs Death, facilitated – their friendship grows into a surprising affirmation of hope, resilience and love. All the while, despite her world-weariness, Death must continue to hold humans’ fates in her hands, appearing in our lives when we least expect her …’

Okay so that’s the fiction précis of this book. That’s the story. But the story is like two slices of bread and inside is the most bitter sweet sandwich filling you’ve ever tasted. It will raise you high and lay you low. But isn’t that what life does? Isn’t that what death does? I had a sense of the Gothic as I read. The personification of death is not new but in this book it is. Death is female, death is a black woman, death is a shape shifter. And then when you think about it hasn’t death always been that way? How did we ever envisage it otherwise?

This book will speak of the uncertainties of the world. It will speak of the only two certainties we do have. Life and death. We live and we die. And this book will open your heart and mind with the most lyrical of words in prose and poetry. And it becomes almost a meditation, an incantation, as you allow yourself to be absorbed by the words and thoughts and ideas. And somehow given the times we are living in at the moment it couldn’t be more appropriate or a more perfect time to read a book such as this. So much of it is relevant, pertinent and hits so many nails on the head you’ll be nodding your head in mute agreement as you try not to cry.

The two main characters are Wolf and Mrs Death. Their relationship has that sense of the inevitable about it. But I worried about Wolf, vulnerable and damaged. Much of the narrative is told from his viewpoint. And I wondered how Mrs Death could sustain such a purpose through time and space.

Stylistically I guess the book defies convention. Good! Sometimes there was a sense of spontaneous prose, other times there was almost formal storytelling. There was one chapter which is composed as an interview between two characters. There were descriptive reports of some brutal incidents. Some passages of whimsy. My overall sense was of the poetry of language. The book is full of poems but the prose, too, is poetic. It’s not a book to just read, it is a book to experience. It is unique. It is insanely creative. It’s challenging.

It’s not a book to just go away on the shelf to gather dust after you’ve finished it. It’s a book to be read and re-read to re-examine alongside what happens in this transient world. It’s a book to gift to your friends - and your enemies. It’s a book about Death but it’s also a book abut Life.

Thank you Canongate Books for my gifted copy. You made this old blogger very happy.