Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Sarah Perry’s previous three novels, The Essex Serpent, Melmoth, and Enlightenment, have given me great pleasure. She writes with a fluid, rich, almost 19th-century style which, while it may not appeal to everyone, delights me over and over. This book is a departure, as it is very definitely nonfiction: the narration of the dying and death of her father-in-law, David Perry. It opens with a charming account of Sarah, her husband Robert, and his father David attending a seaside circus with much laughter and fun. They plan to meet again for another outing, three weeks later. He is late arriving at the meeting place, and Perry catches sight of him, shuffling, pale, and clearly extremely ill. So ill, she sees death walking. She starts to tell her husband, and he says, yes, I see it too. So begins the terrible round of doctors and decline and suffering. There is a moment when Robert asks her: “You’re going to write about this, aren’t you?” She says yes, he replies “Good.”
Perry pulls no punches, leaves nothing out. This is a harrowing, sad, detailed account of one ordinary man’s death, which arrives merely weeks later, of esophageal cancer. He cannot eat, he is in pain, he is incontinent. Sarah and Robert change his sheets, wash him, hunt down urgently needed pain medications and hospital equipment, and cradle him in their arms so he doesn’t fall out of the unrailed bed trying to ease his pain. They navigate the maze of medical care, visiting nurses, hospice caregivers, pharmacies, and at last the undertaker. – nine days after his cancer was diagnosed.
The book is long. Perhaps too long – Perry can trip over repeated phrases, descriptions, and incidents. She mostly does not spare herself in her descriptions of her feelings, but the reader can find themselves irritated with her complaining, occasional resentment, and self-pity in how hard it is for her. Of course it is. How else could it be? There is also a certain distaste when one thinks of her sitting at the bedside of a dying, suffering man that she cared for, busily taking detailed notes for her writing. David was certainly in no position to object, and her husband has consented to it, but it feels a bit creepy nonetheless.
This book joins a growing cadre of end-of-life/grief/mourning titles. Emma Cline’s novel Switzy is another such, and Perry’s clinical, real-life drama might be of value – if terrifying – to readers facing or recovering from a close family death. Her writing is vivid, often beautiful, and lets us know exactly how it was and what it looked like. But Switzy paints a more emotional picture of what it feels like, and in a way comforts us in a way that Perry does not. Still, a remarkable achievement.
* I thank NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. *
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