The Language of Dying

by Sarah Pinborough

From the bestselling author of BEHIND HER EYES comes a beautiful, harrowing, heartbreaking story, filled with exquisite truths.

'A beautiful story, honestly told' says Neil Gaiman.

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 broken, their bonds fragile - have been there for the past week, but now she is alone.

And that's when it always comes.

The clock ticks, the darkness beckons.

If it comes at all.

• ISBN10: 178206754X
• ISBN13: 9781782067542
• Publish Date: 5 December 2013 (first published 10 July 2009)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 11 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Quercus Publishing
• Imprint: Jo Fletcher Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 144
• Language: English

Reviews

[elysium]

3,5 stars

5 siblings are coming home to spend the final moments with their father when he is dying. The unnamed narrator is the middle child who stayed home to care for his father after his diagnosis with cancer. When she informs her siblings that their father has mere days left, they finally come back home when they can no longer postpone it. They all have their own ways coping and it causes drifts between them.

The story bounces between past and present while we follow narrator’s relationship with her father and her siblings. We learn how the family slowly drifted apart after their mother left them.

I didn’t get the magical aspects of the story. When she was a child she saw something. And she sees it again as an adult. Was it real or was she just imagining it? Was it supposed to have some bigger meaning? I don’t get it.

Despite that, I really liked this. It’s short book, more like a novella, and while sad I had to know what happens next.

[celinenyx]

3.5 Stars

Some days you're just not in the mood for fluff, for sparkly vampires or thrillers where the killer always gets caught. Some days just aren't bright and colourful. For those days there is The Language of Dying.

The book narrates the story of a woman sitting at her fathers deathbed, and the days leading up to it where his other children visit.

The book is rather short, so I don't feel comfortable giving a more in-depth description than this. Instead I'll focus on the emotional implications of The Language of Dying. Ms Pinborough knows how to play with us; she uses flowing, lyric language combined with nostalgic and disturbing flashbacks. She knows when to reveal information and when to withhold it, to give us the full scope of what she's trying to convey.

In some ways The Language of Dying reminded me of The Casual Vacancy. Although the two books don't have anything in common on the outside, they both delve into the darker side of humanity - Rowling into the darker side of society, Pinborough into the darker side of the soul. In that respect the book also reminded me very much of Stephen King's Lisey's Story. The paranormal element in The Language of Dying is more subtle, but I feel the metaphors have something in common.

The book has two layers, that will attract two different kind of readers. On the surface there is the story of a woman losing her father to cancer. I felt as if this part was very realistic, and when I browse through reviews I see that this really effects people. For me the second layer, the one I've tried to touch upon in the last paragraph, was more interesting. At some points I felt as if Ms Pinborough's background in film and TV shone through just a bit too much. It felt too scenic, too static or descriptive to fully fit with the medium of a novel. It's hard to put my finger on, but this slight hesitance stopped me from fully immersing myself into the narrative.

If you're looking for a book that will make you sad (which can be a good thing!), The Language of Dying will provide. If you're looking for something deeper or maybe more literary, the book makes a decent effort that's definitely worth the hour or two it takes to read this short book.