A family of monkeys feel loss when they lose a member of their group. The killing of Harambe! Why did they kill Harambe? Why don’t we respect and save the animals, Mrs Death? What will we do when the last elephants are extinct, Mrs Death? Who will save the turtles and the coral reefs and the rainforests?

Salena Godden was walking through Whitechapel when she heard the voice of her narrator, crystal clear, for the first time: “I know a lot of dead people now.” In a time where death is at the forefront, it’s rare to find a book that so thoroughly reminds us about the joys of life, the fragments of memories that last a lifetime, rooting out what really matters. “Even though it’s got death in the title, it’s a book about life – it’s about living life,” says Godden. “It’s about telling people you love them before it’s too late. It’s not really about death, which death often isn’t. So much of this book is about facing your fear, and how empowering it is to see fear for what it is, to see doubt, and to find courage, to find hope.But it is also a book in an old tradition of personified abstractions, of didactic allegory. Mrs Death, for example, has a sister: ‘My Sister. Life. She is constantly vomiting, and puking cherry pips and cherry blossom everywhere. Every time life lays an egg, Death eats an egg.’ Mrs Death and her sister both have Time as a lover, a ‘demagogue dictator’ who ‘loves a deadline.’ But sister Life lives in denial and refuses to believe that Time and Death must also have ‘some sort of love for each other.’ The meditations on life and death are complex, varied, always provoking. Without death, Mrs Death asks, what would we be? Nothing but ‘big-breasted, hot-fisted infants, as destructive as children stamping on sandcastles; you would be worse than you already are.’ What would it be like, Wolf asks, if our expiry date was stamped on our heads? If ‘we knew exactly how long and how little left we had to love each other, maybe then we would all be more kind and loving.’ Or would we be?Wolf isn’t sure and neither am I. A chapter “Mrs Death: You Could be Heroes” starts with mourning the death of inspirational heroes like Cohen, Bowie and Prince before arguing that true heroes are activists, volunteers, protesters, health service workers, campaigners for “libraries, museums, galleries, independent bookshops … beautiful places where thinkers and writers and artists [can] meet and share work”

It is a huge honour to be invited to receive an Honorary Fellowship at West Dean. This is such an inspiring place to write, to nourish ideas and art, creativity and visions. I enjoyed a memorable time as writer-in residence at West Dean and loved exploring the beautiful grounds and gardens. I worked on the first draft of my next novel here and wrote lots of ideas and poetry sitting under these glorious trees. I'm so grateful and so happy to be selected for this. It is an encouragement and a wonderful gift. While many deaths are featured, inevitably, as Wolf explains in his preface, this book does not mention every person that has ever died – if you wished this book to have mentioned another death, we can only apologise now in advance, for not knowing Mental health is such a strong component of Wolf’s story, and there are times where the narrative will have you questioning if what you’re reading is even real. There’s a part of the book where Wolf admits that they’re Bipolar, and there are a handful of moments where you begin to question if Mrs Death is even there or if it’s all part of Wolf’s mind, their worsening mental health; and this is even before their Bipolar is even brought up. Even by the end of the book it’s unclear if we’ve actually experienced a story of a troubled young person meeting the personification of Death, of if it’s simply the story of a troubled young person trying to find some sense of stability and happiness in their life.Oh, I have been travelling. I time travel. I am a death tourist. I am witness. I am permitted. I can see every end, I go everywhere that Mrs Death goes and the places only Mrs Death can go when I am here and when I listen to The Desk.” I am here. Death is a woman. I am a woman. Surely by erasing me we have erased this power? By never portraying a woman as the representative of Death, the boss of Death, the figure of Death itself, one could debate that an important and fundamental disempowerment takes place. Perhaps this is what erasure looks like. Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican-mixed heritage based in London. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. Film and TV rights for Mrs Death Misses Death have been optioned by Idris Elba’s production company Green Door Pictures. Godden has been shortlisted for the 4thWrite short story prize and the Ted Hughes Prize. Her work has been widely anthologised and broadcast on radio, TV and film. Her poem Pessimism Is for Lightweights is on permanent display at the People’s History Museum, Manchester. She was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022. Above I gushed about how strong a premise this book had. When I see a strong premise not strongly executed it makes me sad, maybe even a little mad because I know with tighter edits and stronger editor the book would have been great.

Mrs Death is tired and sad. Since the beginning of time she’s been the one to bring death to humans and to stand alongside them as they pass. She isn’t weary of the job – she sees it as a great privilege and an honour – but she’s tired in her soul. Following the earlier suggestion that we think of Death not as a male character, as we have been encouraged to in the past, we’re then asked to consider how strange it is that this was ever thought to be the case. The Writing It is clear Salena Godden can write. This is my first introduction to her work, and she writes solidly. I have never read any of her poetry so it was great seeing a bit of it included in this book. She writes convincingly so much so, I started feeling sorry for Mrs. Death. Death is literally in the title, so be fair warned that this isn’t always a nice and cozy story. There are discussions on real-life serial killers and their victims, which are graphic. They do not glamourize it but remind the reader that it happened. The author also discusses mental health, BLM, police brutality, and racism. This doesn’t read as clever or intelligent to me. Harambe? Is that supposed to be funny? It feels outdated.The voice of the furniture allows for these same insights into the pain of living to be developed whilst maintaining the light tone which eases the discomfort of truth. Mrs Death Misses Death should not, however, be dismissed as simply a darkly humorous book. Godden’s observations on mourning are particularly potent as she derives meaning from the mundane, from the objects we choose to keep to the way we might be innocently ‘ordinary’ in our unawareness of how our worlds will irrevocably change. She’s tired of it, tired of male pronouns taking over the world when men are brought to death just the same as women A rhythmic and powerful poetic meditation on death, life and love and the hidden mysteries of the universe; both playful and sombre, hilarious and human NIKESH SHUKLA Godden brings her poetic skills in writing this amusing story, of Mrs. Death unburdening her story to Woof Willeford, a struggling author who buys a magic desk. Through the desk, Mrs. Death takes Woof with her while she explains her story. I listened to the audio narrated by the author herself. She tells her story in a stream-of-conscious format which works well with her poetic skills. Godden does not leave her reader dismayed as she ultimately concludes that living is a ‘glorious mess’ and knowing that we are alive should make us live as even better people. Mrs Death Misses Death is an irresistible novel which speaks equally to the act of living as it does to the inevitability of dying.