Mrs Death Misses Death, by Salena Godden. Pub 2022

I was tricked into reading this book by a) hearing it mentioned somewhat favourably on a podcast, and b) thinking the name was a clever play on words. Unfortunately, this book has the ignominy of being my choice for the drivel category, and so early in the year. I hope this is a sign that things can only get better.

The main character is not, in fact, Mrs Death, but a young person of unspecified gender (but likely a woman) with a mental illness (likely bipolar disorder) named Wolf. Wolf is an indigent writer, living a rough life in a dodgy London neighbourhood. While not explicitly stated, the strong hints are that Wolf survived the 2017 Grenfell fire (however, since Wolf was only 9 at that time, and is somehow an adult by 2022, the math doesn’t quite work), a catastrophe with strong racist overtones that influences the rest of Wolf’s life. At the start of the book, Wolf meets Mrs Death, an amorphous and ever-changing apparition who regales Wolf with stories from her “life” – horrible abuse and murder, her strange relationship with Time (another persona that we do not meet), and her strained relationship with her sister, Life. At some point, Wolf is committed for a time, and afterwards goes to a writer’s retreat in Ireland where she encounters Life and writes poetry. The End.

To say this book was confusing is an understatement. There are long passages that repeat the same phrases over and over, trying to make distinctions by capitalizing various words or altering the spellings slightly. There are diatribes by one or the other characters, poems and songs (albeit without music), long lists of things (50+ ways that someone might die), long long LONG sentences, and lots of trying-to-be-clever word play about life, death, and time. “A lifetime. Life Time. Life and Time. Time and Life. Time of your Life.” And it goes on and on like that. Oh, and something about a rabbit. At the end, there is a passage from the author inviting readers to write about and celebrate those they know who have died. Seriously, how could anyone want more of this?

I persisted to the end if only to see if there was ultimately some explanation for the title. There was not. All that, and the poetry wasn’t even very good.

Fate: little book library, as soon as possible, with a modicum of guilt that someone else might be similarly tempted by the title.

1 – a book with a murder
7 – a debut novel
8 – a female author
14 – a name in the title
25 – new author to me
38 – drivel