Sarah Pinborough

The Language of Dying

Tonight is a special, terrible night. A woman sits at her father's bedside watching the clock tick away the last hours of his life. Her brothers and sisters - all traumatised in their own ways, their bonds fragile - have been there for the past week, but now she is alone. And that's always when it comes. As the clock ticks in the darkness, she can only wait for it to find her...

Maggie Gordon

The Language of Dying is a gorgeous, gut-punch of a book. It is a story about death and family, about crisis and everyday problems. It is about coping and then not coping. the narrative begins with our protagonist in her childhood house that she bought from her father. Her father lives with her, dying of cancer. She has called all her siblings together for their last goodbyes. The reunion starts well. The two sisters bond and laugh despite the heartache. But there are cracks beneath the surface, and as the brothers come, our protagonist begins to drift (as she likes to tell us). Well, not us. She speaks to her father throughout the book. It is an unusual, but compelling way of telling this story, allowing the protagonist to engage in a confessional about her life without ever actually saying a word to the people around her. Grief and trauma from throughout her life are intertwined, and the conclusion of the book is arresting and uncomfortable, but very fitting.

The book is magic realism. There are moments of the fantastical, particularly at the end. But most of the narrative is a quiet, tormented exploration of the pain of caring for a loved one near death, trying to bring disjointed families together during times of crisis, and dealing with past abuse.

In this emotionally gripping, genre-defying novella from Sarah Pinborough, a woman sits at her father's bedside, watching the clock tick away the last hours of his life. Her brothers and sisters--she is the middle child of five--have all turned up over the past week to pay their last respects. Each is traumatized in his or her own way, and the bonds that unite them to each other are fragile--as fragile perhaps as the old man's health. With her siblings all gone, back to their self-obsessed lives, she is now alone with the faltering wreck of her father's cancer-ridden body. It is always at times like this when it--the dark and nameless, the impossible, presence that lingers along the fringes of the dark fields beyond the house--comes calling. As the clock ticks away in the darkness, she can only wait for it to find her, a reunion she both dreads and aches for...

Alexia

Thank you Netgalley and Quercus Books for the ARC!
This beautifully written story has a magical realism element, but that doesn't affect the realist sadness the reader experiences throughout the whole book, thanks to the heart-wrenching truthfulness in the narrative style. Full review.
En esta historia escrita de manera hermosa hay un elemento de realismo mágico, pero eso no afecta la tristeza realista que el lector experimenta a lo largo del libro gracias a la veracidad desgarradora del estilo narrativo. Reseña completa.

The Language of Dying

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