Mental health is such a strong component of Wolf’s story, and there are times where the narrative will have you questioning if what you’re reading is even real. There’s a part of the book where Wolf admits that they’re Bipolar, and there are a handful of moments where you begin to question if Mrs Death is even there or if it’s all part of Wolf’s mind, their worsening mental health; and this is even before their Bipolar is even brought up. Even by the end of the book it’s unclear if we’ve actually experienced a story of a troubled young person meeting the personification of Death, of if it’s simply the story of a troubled young person trying to find some sense of stability and happiness in their life. Salena Godden’s debut novel is as much an affirmation of life as a tale of death, writes Wendy Erskine. Death is literally in the title, so be fair warned that this isn’t always a nice and cozy story. There are discussions on real-life serial killers and their victims, which are graphic. They do not glamourize it but remind the reader that it happened. The author also discusses mental health, BLM, police brutality, and racism. Mrs Death Misses Death may on the surface be a book about loss and endings but it is also a brave and funny view of living, and the space between the two. There is life here, and humour, and a challenging viewpoint. The book is filled with strong female and non-binary characters, grappling with the sheer exhaustion of holding their shit together and coping with the shape of the world.

Where I think the novel really succeeds is in balancing its two levels: the cosmic, in which Life and Death are sisters and Time is Death’s lover in a sort of creation myth; and the personal, in which Wolf’s family tree, printed at the end, is an appalling litany of accidental deaths and executions. It’s easy to see why Wolf is so traumatized, but Mrs Death, ironically, reminds him that, despite all of the world’s fallen heroes and ongoing crises, there is still such beauty to be found in life. The Gordon Burn Prize recognises literature that is forward-thinking and fearless in its ambition and execution, often playing with style, pushing boundaries, crossing genres or challenging readers’ expectations. But the book isn’t just about Wolf, it’s also about Death. Not just the process of life coming to an end, although that does feature heavily in the narrative, but the actual person who travels through the world moving people on from life to death.In a time where death is at the forefront, it’s rare to find a book that so thoroughly reminds us about the joys of life, the fragments of memories that last a lifetime, rooting out what really matters. “Even though it’s got death in the title, it’s a book about life – it’s about living life,” says Godden. “It’s about telling people you love them before it’s too late. It’s not really about death, which death often isn’t. So much of this book is about facing your fear, and how empowering it is to see fear for what it is, to see doubt, and to find courage, to find hope. Not specific with pronouns when she writes Wolf, Godden gently nudges us to question assumptions of gender. After a few characters are revealed to be women, Godden pokes fun at the reader and challenges the assumption that titles such as Dr are more commonly used by men. We are reminded that Mrs Death is often pictured in a male guise – one of the things she’s clearly finding so exhausting. She’s tired of it, tired of male pronouns taking over the world when men are brought to death just the same as women. She’s tired of human brutality and not just men against women; in one instance she also marks the cruelty by a mother to her child. Godden makes a point of the horrors that the mother herself experienced, but again, makes no excuses for the treatment of her child. She sets out the story as it stands and allows the discomfort.

And let’s hope that if you do kill yourself, you are well over forty years old, because to kill yourself before age forty is like murdering a stranger. I’ve often wondered how very different this living life would be if we were born with our expiry date stamped on our foreheads. I mean, if we knew exactly how long and little time we have left to love each other, maybe then we would be more kind and loving. Imagine if we knew our death date. How different we would live, maybe, and yes I know, maybe not. But it is also a book in an old tradition of personified abstractions, of didactic allegory. Mrs Death, for example, has a sister: ‘My Sister. Life. She is constantly vomiting, and puking cherry pips and cherry blossom everywhere. Every time life lays an egg, Death eats an egg.’ Mrs Death and her sister both have Time as a lover, a ‘demagogue dictator’ who ‘loves a deadline.’ But sister Life lives in denial and refuses to believe that Time and Death must also have ‘some sort of love for each other.’ The meditations on life and death are complex, varied, always provoking. Without death, Mrs Death asks, what would we be? Nothing but ‘big-breasted, hot-fisted infants, as destructive as children stamping on sandcastles; you would be worse than you already are.’ What would it be like, Wolf asks, if our expiry date was stamped on our heads? If ‘we knew exactly how long and how little left we had to love each other, maybe then we would all be more kind and loving.’ Or would we be?Wolf isn’t sure and neither am I.Mrs Death Misses Death is unlike any other book I’ve ever read. It begins with humorous disclaimers of what the book is not, warning the reader against any expectations, before throwing us into verse and diary entries. Throughout the work, writer Salena Godden mixes poetry, prose and song while managing to keep the book cohesive. Brilliant, powerful, unique, this book is exhausting to read and yet beautiful to experience. I will be shouting from my window to anyone who can hear me; Mrs Death Misses Death is a masterpiece of modern literature. Now, this book contains not just the dead Wolf may know of and that Mrs Death may mention, but the names each of you may want to remember here today. And in thefuture anyone who reads your copy of this book will read that handwritten name and speak it aloud. Salena Godden's debut novel is dead funny. From its opening disclaimer, the stage is set for the most bizarre and humorous exploration into death that you may ever read. The book follows Wolf Willeford, a self-proclaimed poet and the 'ghost writer’ of Mrs Death's memoir. I mean, obviously YMMV and there will always be outliers, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that if you only read poetry irregularly and often find yourself being impatient with it when you do, and it’s mostly an exercise in frustration for you like it is for me, then you will probably feel pretty similarly to me regarding this book. I am upset about it, though, because the premise sounded so good, and the cover was so pretty.

One of my absolute favorite characteristics in books is WEIRDNESS. I’m exactly the target audience for experimental storytelling. The premise sounded awesome, but the execution just fell so short. The weirdness felt so surface level. It gave the book this Fake-Deep feel. One which manages to simultaneously deal with perhaps the oldest theme of all (death) and yet one that is more topical than ever in the COVID eraSalena Godden appears at The Fountain's Evening of Quarantine Dreaming , 25 Feb, 9pm, part of Paisley Book Festival It’s the idea of when you’re not speaking your truth, and not saying something you really want to say,” she explains. “When you keep putting something off, you berate yourself and put yourself down for not getting something finished. It’s easy to have a really good idea, it’s difficult to finish something, isn’t it? So to pursue it, and to persist in finishing it, hurt, but it hurt a hell of a lot more giving up.” Join us in conversation with Annabelle Hirsch and Salena Godden talking about Annablle's remarkable book A History of Women in 101 Objects: A Walk Through Female History.A vital and beautiful collection that tells a new story of female history through a hundred and one objects, some extraordinary and others everyday. Following the earlier suggestion that we think of Death not as a male character, as we have been encouraged to in the past, we’re then asked to consider how strange it is that this was ever thought to be the case. The Writing It is clear Salena Godden can write. This is my first introduction to her work, and

So as it might seem obvious, I was expecting fantasy but don't let the premise fool you, this book is full of surprises, twists, and turns. It is also an interesting combination of fiction and poetry. And then he feels a cool presence nearby. Soon: “I am walking with Mrs Death and she shows me a London of layered worlds, the many worlds of before, and I hear the cries of far away and long ago. It is all here; I am both in the present and in the past. Mrs Death is vivid and by my side, narrating my world.” I am seldom so enraged by a book that I feel the need to write a scathing review, but this book has done it. In one fell swoop, it has achieved the coveted status as being one of the worst pieces of writing I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Honestly, it felt like it was written by a disturbed group of Year 8 drama students trying to impress their classmates by making relentless reference to death and how miserable and gloomy it is. I felt the first 25% of the book was phenomenal, the writing, introduction of characters, scenes and Mrs. Death narration was flawless. Then, it all started to wane. Death in itself is a very board topic, it’s been happening since the beginning of time- there are so many ways to explore the topic and I think that’s where the author (maybe even the editor) may have went wrong, she tried to do entirely too much instead of keeping it tighter and more focused. At one point I was like, “huh, how dis even drop in yasso?!!” that for me was a little infuriating. Mrs Death herself is both the most significant figure at the end of every life and yet the least significant in our everyday world:But I’m actually glad that we don’t get given a strong answer to this, that Godden allows the reader to look at the book and make up their own mind instead. Maybe we were hearing stories of people across time and their brushes with death, or maybe we just got to hear Wolf making up tales for their writing. In the end, it’ll mean whatever you want it to, and whatever conclusion you come to will be your own interpretation of this wonderfully dark, yet uplifting book that does its own thing in its own way. The voice of the furniture allows for these same insights into the pain of living to be developed whilst maintaining the light tone which eases the discomfort of truth. Mrs Death Misses Death should not, however, be dismissed as simply a darkly humorous book. Godden’s observations on mourning are particularly potent as she derives meaning from the mundane, from the objects we choose to keep to the way we might be innocently ‘ordinary’ in our unawareness of how our worlds will irrevocably change.