Book Review: "Death of an Ordinary Man" by Sarah Perry

When I read this book I thought perhaps I wouldn't have enough to say about it to write a full-length review. However, I have proven myself incorrect and here we are. I am a big lover of beautiful prose and I think that the style of the prose in certain books can be like the strokes of a brush by a painter. It shows control, the ability to portray complex imagery, feelings and philosophies whilst also telling us a compelling story filled with genuinely wrought human emotions. I was surprised at this book for the fact it was simply so good. Death of an Ordinary Man is exactly what you think it is about and now, let's start at the beginning.

Sarah Perry is telling us about the death of her father-in-law named David. David was an ordinary man in the sense that it almost seemed like his life had no story to tell. But as Sarah Perry and us readers know, there is always a story in something and we just need to find it. She doesn't exactly wait for the opportune moment to tell us about his death but instead goes back and forth, before and after he dies to tell us about certain realisations she has and why she couldn't see certain things before. The writing is poetic yes, but this isn't a book which leads us into his death but instead, it's a book about the feelings of others surrounding someone so close to you dying away slowly. She concludes of course, that there isn't really a single moment of dying - in fact, dying is a long process sometimes lasting days and days. Death is just the final part of it for the person who gets sick, there are still extra steps for the people they leave behind.

One of the scenes that is probably the most emotional in this book is when you start to see David's decline. He has cancer and it's quite advanced. As David is quite old, he isn't expected to live very long because of it and thus, the family already knows that they are - in ways - preparing for his death long before he has actually died. David's decline is filled with him not being able to get up, not being able to lie down properly because his back hurts, going to and from hospital with his family continuously visiting him and even people nursing him or looking after him throughout the night. It's an incredibly emotional experience and Sarah Perry does not hold back that sometimes, she definitely felt overwhelmed by all she had to do even though she desperately wanted to make David as comfortable as possible. Again, it explores the reality of these situations in which there are people who must look after others in ways that are almost like a second job. Sometimes, it definitely got quite sad to the point you would have to stop reading. David's decline is not a poetic one.

We also see multiple writers and philosophers pop up through reference and conversation, showing that these long-dead writers are still alive in the minds of people who came long after them. These include people like Plato - who are quite far back. As I've said, this book doesn't deal with death as an event, but it is simply an end to suffering. Ultimately, what we are taught is that life goes on for the other people and like they talk of Plato, perhaps they will talk of other people in thousands of years from now. It's one of those things the book doesn't tell us to think about but your mind definitely drifts there as you read the book.

I was surprised. I didn't think I would like a book like this but in reality, it definitely left me breathless. It is written beautifully, it is told with so much emotion that you can almost feel yourself holding the hand of the author as she tells you the story and atop of all of this, it actually happened. The author trusts the readers enough with this story of someone close to her declining unto death that she has given us access to these memories without restraint.