Wolf encounters Mrs Death at a young age and it changes his world for ever. As a grown man he meets her again and decides to write her memoirs, going on a journey through past, present and future to learn all kinds of endings of life and what it teaches us. The idea of death as a character is interesting ( it was done particularly well in “The Book Thief”), and here the idea of it as a man ( the grim reaper) is challenged, and is personified as that most invisible of humans, a homeless black woman. She reminds us that life without death has no real meaning- she highlights how precious and fragile our lives are, because they are finite and we do not know when they will be over. The ideas are powerful and pertinent, the wrongs of society are critiqued, and the use of language and imagery is audacious and vibrant- you can see the author’s poetry background clearly, especially in the switches to different writing styles, including stream of consciousness, blank verse and dialogue. However, I did not really enjoy it. I found the constant format changes distracting and a bit repetitive, and missed a more formal narrative, and the darkness became in places a bit oppressive. For me, one to admire rather than love.

A stunning, life affirming novel. Salena Godden takes giant leaps in time, tone and space yet balances it all so beautifully. It’s breathtaking. I wanted to underline almost every word to share and remember.. I’m not a big re-reader (so many books, so little time!), but this is one I will return to, and soon.

I founding this book really interesting to read, a tad confusing at times and completely made me re-think the narrator and what was going on but it was really interestingly written - a mixture of poetry and prose. A very abrupt ending though, left me wondering what happened? Or is the reader supposed to come up with their own conclusion?

“death is a rabbit
darting in a distant field
death is the stranger
you feed at your door ...” - from ‘Mrs Death Misses Death’, 2021.

This image of death as a rabbit was one of many poetic interludes within ‘Mrs Death Misses Death’ by Salena Godden. She is an established poet, essayist, broadcaster, and activist though this is her debut novel.

It is quite an unusual novel both in its themes and structure. It is also highly engaging: a literary novel that is accessible rather than ‘challenging’.

Mrs. Death is exhausted from doing her job. She encounters Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer who is already acquainted with death. Until now he hadn’t met death in person and is surprised to find that Death is a black, working-class woman, who shape-shifts and undertakes her grim reaping unseen. “The greatest trick man played was making you believe I was a man. ...that Death was male in spirit - the Grim Reaper in a black hood with a scythe.”

Wolf becomes Mrs Death’s scribe and begins to write her memoirs. He obtains an antique desk that serves as a conduit allowing Wolf to travel across time and space with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and to discuss what the future holds for humanity.

This was such a delight. It opens with a long disclaimer warning the reader about content. This did seem to be written with more than a touch of wry humour regarding the current tendency towards the inclusion of such warnings.

This novel is light and dark, a tragedy and a comedy, a philosophical meditation on the nature of death and yet life affirming. Mrs Death also reminds us of how many deaths are preventable including the spate of deaths by selfie and poignant memories of the London Grenfell Tower fire.

I found myself completely drawn into this wonderful novel. I had received an advance digital review copy via NetGalley from Canongate Books, though loving it so much I quickly purchased its hardback edition.

I complemented my reading with its audiobook edition, read by the author. Salena Godden includes a bonus track setting ‘Fears’, one of the poetic sections, to music. This was amazing.

I loved this novel so much and expect to not only widely recommend it but to reread to further appreciate its multiple layers.

In my opinion it is a masterpiece that deserves wide recognition. Given its themes and Salena Godden’s exquisitely lyrical writing, I would expect that it will be a strong contender for this year’s U.K. literary prizes.

On a side note the artwork for the cover designed by Gill Heely featuring a wolf and a rabbit in gold and black is very striking.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for a review.

Whilst the writing was stunning and the premise of this story was beautiful I found it a little hard to enjoy - probably because of the unflinching description of sexual acts, death and history in general.

Those who liked The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal, The Devil and The Dark Water by Stuart Turton and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong will enjoy this book.

I was sent a copy of Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden to read and review by NetGalley. This novel is really a psychological insight into death, life and everything in between! It covers memories, sadness, happiness, madness and many other emotions within the communications between Mrs Death herself and the character named Wolf. There is a lot of insight within these pages and I found my views both reaffirmed and sometimes questioned in my own mind. There is a good deal of observation surrounding world affairs such as climate change, poverty and injustice, which I felt was explored in a very accessible way. I feel that this novel does a great job of both entertaining and at the same time educating the reader, while also at times being quite comforting.

I requested this novel from Netgalley and the publisher as the premise for the novel sounded so interesting.
Sadly however, I have to say, I struggled to get into it. Told partly in prose and partly in poetry, the reader learns that Mrs Death has had enough of doing her job, is somewhat jealous of her sister, Life, and seeks to unburden herself on someone, that someone being the young, Wolf, who briefly met death as a child when her mother was died in a high rise fire.
However, the text became too disjointed for me to enjoy the story, with the plot slipping away at various points into a stream of thoughts with little holding it together, and the switching between prose and poetry left me confused at times. The story devolves into a series of vignettes, some of which held my interest although many didn’t. The chapters on Tilly Tuppence, how Wolf acquired her desk, Jack the Ripper, and Wolf’s descriptions of the Nightingale Hospital, for example, were all beautifully told and captivating but they did not make up for the long scenes of introspection and discussion between Wolf and Mrs Death.
The book covers many of the moment issues such as race, gender identity, mental health, abuse, as well as many forms of death. I really felt I should have enjoyed it more than I did, but it was too unusual and too unconventional
for me, despite the great title and interesting blurb.
Many thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read.

Salena Godden's previous published work has been poetry and memoir, making "Mrs Death Misses Death" her debut novel. I enjoyed the inclusion of a disclaimer at the beginning, which directly addresses the reader and sets our expectations. Death then takes us on a journey back to the beginning of time, then back through evolution. Contrary to common perception, Death in this case is represented by an old, working-class black woman. And as we all know, old women (especially black ones) are invisible.

Mrs Death exudes wisdom and imparts some of this to Wolf Willeford, a writer whose mother died tragically in a fire - the details of which felt like a respectful, rageful nod to Grenfell. Wolf is non-binary and describes themself as "Biracial, Bisexual, Bigender and Bipolar". Their story made me reflect on those I've lost and all those last times, of which I was unaware until it was too late.

Godden's prose has a poetic rhythm like a heartbeat which builds to a frenzy in places. There are many themes explored in the novel, including the lengths to which we will go in an attempt to prolong our lives; the mad diets and self-deprivation. Climate change, our obsession with screens, constant worry, our fight for survival, taking life for granted.

"Mrs Death Misses Death" is also part love letter to London's rich history. There are myriad fringe characters (real and imagined) throughout the text my favourite of whom was Tilly Tuppence and her Ma. Godden also presents us with an interesting theory pertaining to Jack the Ripper. The book is made up of prose, verse and song and I loved all of the side stories. The jazz trumpeter broke my heart. I also learned some new names to research further, e. g. Sarah Reed, Inga Maria Hauser, Joanne Dennehy.

Love (in its many forms) runs through the text like a thread, tying all the strands together. Godden also touches on the maiden/mother/crone archetype, the notion of heroes and the rise in popularity of performative grief. Through an exploration of time and history, she provokes reflection on issues such as how well can we ever really know one another? And what is real, and what is feelings? And what are feelings?

I loved the sections pertaining to The Desk and the idea of the shape the world carves into you. I also found it funny and poignant that The Desk is deeply dismayed it didn't get to be A Piano! Overall the novel is life-affirming and empowering. It's also motivated me to start sorting through some of my crap (both metaphorical and physical) so that nobody else has to deal with it when Mrs Death visits me.

Disappointed that this really didn't match with the hype for me. I was really excited to read it but I think the marketing threw me off. It is far more about Wolf struggling with their sense of despair rather than Mrs Death being fed up of her job. It's very creative in the mix of styles of prose and poetry, but it seemed more like a jumble of thoughts on death rather than a cohesive story.

What a rush this book is! I’m sure I missed a lot in my first reading but I’m sure this is a book that will benefit from repeat reads. It’s not a conventional title, or style but it does pack a punch. There are so many tiny observations casually scattered in the prose, each one a mini truth and each devastating. Godden’s poet’s eye has picked up on our society’s casual, strange attitude to the suffering and grief of others, especially those poorer or darker skinned than us, and Mrs Death Misses Death doesn’t mess around. It’s a short but banging novel debut.

At first this gave me Neil Gaiman vibes but the more I read the less I enjoyed the author's self-aware and repetitive style (things on the lines of "I am you, you are me, he is she, she is me, he is all", "death is me, you are death, death is dead"). I understand what the author was going for (a modern fairytale-esque style) but the repetition was laid on a bit too thick. It tried to hard, the meta aspect wasn't all that innovative either. Nevertheless I know that this kind of prose and storytelling would appeal to others.

Now with book I really didn't know what to expect. Mrs Death is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, who meets Death in person – a black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen. Wolf becomes Mrs Death’s scribe, and begins to write her memoirs. Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity.

The book obviously discusses death and its opposite, life. Wolf and Mrs Death's discussions on death are certainly eye opening and make you reflect on your own ideas on death. As morbid as it sounds, death is something we hate to think about but along with Wolf we get to confront our ideas on death. The book left me with things to ponder on and there are some great quotes.

One of my favourites is "To die is to be have been alive, that is why you must live: live free, live wild, live true and live love alive." As much as it talks about death, you find yourself rethinking what it means to be alive. Living. Life.

The story itself was a bit underwhelming for me but I did enjoy thinking about death more than I ever have. This book is very original so scores top marks for that! Content warnings though there are graphic descriptions of death in this book! TW: suicide

3/5

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers meets Girl, Woman, Other would be my marketing shorthand for this one. Poet Salena Godden’s debut novel is a fresh and fizzing work, passionate about exposing injustice but also about celebrating simple joys, and in the end it’s wholly life-affirming despite a narrative stuffed full of deaths real and imagined.

What if Death wasn’t the male Grim Reaper stereotype? What if, instead, she was a poor black woman – a bag lady on a bus, or a hospital cleaner? In this playful and lilting story, we learn of Mrs Death’s work via her unwitting medium, Wolf Willeford, who one Christmas Eve goes walking in London’s Brick Lane area and buys an irresistible desk that reveals flashes of historical deaths. Once Mrs Death’s desk (and resentful at not being a piano), it now transmits her stories to Wolf, giving a whole new meaning to the term ghost writer. Wolf compiles and edits her memoirs, which take the form of diary entries, poems, and songs.

It’s never been more stressful to be Death, what with civil war in Syria, school shootings in the USA, and refugees drowning off the coast of France. But although the book’s frame of reference is up to the minute, wrongful deaths are nothing new, so occasional vignettes dramatize untimely demises – especially of black women – across the centuries: from the days of slavery to Jack the Ripper to police custody a few years ago. There are so many ways to die:

really nearly took that other plane on 9/11
had a coconut fall on your head
saw your village being bombed
slipped taking a selfie by the Grand Canyon
had a fight with an alligator
got stranded in a fierce and fast-moving bushfire

Speaking of fire, and of the title, Wolf (biracial, nonbinary, and possibly bipolar) is here to narrate only because Mrs Death missed one. Their mum died in a house fire. Wolf should have died that day, too, but heard a voice saying “Wake up, Wolf … Can you smell smoke?” Were they spared deliberately, or did Mrs Death make a mistake? (After all, we learn that when a patient briefly wakes up on the operating table before dying for good, it’s because Mrs Death’s printer got jammed.)

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:

“All the warmth and all the joy is boiled in a soup of memory, we stir the good stuff from the bottom of the pot and hold the ladle up, drink, we say, look at all the good chunks of goodness, take in your share of good times, good music, good books, good food, good laughter, good people, be grateful for the good stuff, life and death, we say, drink.”

There were a few spots where I thought the content repetitive and wondered if the miscellany format distracted from the narrative, but overall the book more than lives up to its fantastic cover, title, and premise. And with the pandemic’s global death toll rising daily, it could hardly be more relevant.

Unusual, musical, and a real pleasure to read: this is the first entry on my Best of 2021 shelf.

This was an interesting mix of poetry and prose. The two characters of Wolf and Mrs Death were one and the same in many places and they supported and built on each other. The writing was done well and i liked the styles that were used. This was a well-done book and the different topics and elements it explored were fascinating to read about.

This book will probably win prizes because it is certainly original in format, but not the idea of Death being a person . This has already been done to “ death” before by Pratchett and Gaiman etc.
The book jumps all over the place with short chapters and abrupt style change in the narrative . The result is confusing and overall, not much to get excited about. Too many pages just listing ways of dying , violently, peacefully - all kinds of every way.

To be fair, I think all bases were covered, but it is not very entertaining or stimulating and is so dreary that I found myself skim reading to the end.

There was not much of a coherent story either. Somewhere in there is a gratuitous tale of a female Jack the Ripper which does not work in the overall context of the book. I don’t mind black humour, but I found this book depressing .Perhaps too much to take in the present climate where every news bulletin produces heartbreaking and harrowing stories .

Sorry Not for me.

A story about Mrs Death and her new friend Wolf. This story is amazing and a a weird tale combined. Without giving too much away, this book will fascinate and enchant you. Nobody really likes to talk or read about death, however, Read it and you will not be disappointed.
I loved it .

There is no narrative as such in this short book of stories, tales, meditations, poems and thoughts - Wolf meets Mrs Death when she comes for his mother during a tower block fire, spread fast by defective cladding. After this she and he philosophically discuss death in all its aspects in alternate short chapters. The tone is sharp and pragmatic, with side swipes at the publishing industry (I enjoyed the pr trends truths and the need to have death in the title). Godden also reminds us how stories can highlight injustices and forgotten people throughout history.

The book starts with a disclaimer and a list of so many quotable lines! "This book is short because life is short". "This book knows loss and feels your pain"

In We Could Be Heroes, it looks at the online outpouring of grief for stars of music (there are individual pieces dedicated to Bowie and Prince) and screen but celebrates the heroes everywhere - doctors, teachers and volunteers. "It is your job to seek out and support and nurture heroes. Fight for your rights, your freedoms, your arts, poetry and music."

Of course this was written prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, so the huge death toll taken by this virus isn't mentioned but readers can take some solace and wisdom from this writing and know that Mrs Death would not be happy about the current state of affairs.

TW: discussion about/diagnosing with Bipolar Disorder
At first glance, this book is weird and doesn't have an obvious point. Until you're well into it and suddenly Wolf and Mrs. Death's relationship is the most important thing in the world. You begin to relate to and care for them. You watch as they spiral and fixate on the story and each other, completely disregarding their needs.

-- When I am writing with Wolf I feel seen and heard, actually listened to for once; for the first time ever I am not just an invisible cleaner, clearing the dead bodies. --

It's my fault for thinking that this would have been more fantastical than it was. However, I didn't feel like I missed out on anything for its lack of high fantasy elements. Death was deeply caring and only wanted the absolute best for humankind. Each suffering took a toll on her.

I honestly don't know who I would recommend this for, who the target audience is. All I will say is that if this sounds like something you would read, then you should.

“Mrs Death Misses Death” by Salena Godden is a mystical, haunting, lyrical journey like no other and one that will stay with you.

The principal narrator Wolf has struggled through life losing both parents while still very young; things take a new twist when Wolf buys an antique desk. Wolf listens to the desk and after a while is visited by Mrs Death and they become close companions; so close that they are both deeply affected.

I loved this totally fresh account Godden brings to established roles that have long been unchallenged. I expect this book to become very much talked-about this year and for a long time. I look forward to reading more from this clever and talented author in the future.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an arc of this book for an honest review. This review DOES NOT contain any major spoilers, so if the review is vague at times, that is why.

Before getting into this I think it’s important to explain that I don’t think I read this book at the right time as I wanted to read a less complex prose and poetry, meaning that my interest is was low. With that said that doesn’t take away from how beautifully written and composed this piece of work is. For this reason I have two ratings:

2.5 stars for enjoyment
4.5 stars if I was to read and study this for university

For this reason I am giving the book 3.5 stars (4 because I round up).


What I liked:
- Told with a mix of poetry and prose with interesting plot idea and the way it was told was different which I enjoyed.
- The way this book got be to cherish those around me. After reading Wolfie’s first chapter I was nearly in tears.
- Provoking - I liked the ‘on the nose commentary’ about global situations. One that kept appearing in my mind was Grenfell Tower and all the ways that that tragic incident could have been prevented. The novel also handles conversations surrounding race and gender very well and is very poignant.
- My favourite chapter was “Mrs Dreath and The Doctor” (around 210pages in / 57%), I loved the way it was structured and that it was dialogue only, like a screenplay.


What didn’t hit the mark for me:

- I wasn’t griped / it couldn’t hold my attention. I think the changing between prose and poetry left me very confused at times as I didn’t understand what was happening.
- I personally preferred the descriptive prose chapters compared to the others as they were more descriptive so I could see in my head what was going on. When there wasn’t any it really left me in the dark.

On the whole an interested read as Godden explores race and gender in a fresh way! Godden’s imagination is top tier and they way the story is told is definitely niche! I’d recommend people reading it if they are looking for a new and fresh style, narrative, and ‘play’ on death!