Mrs Death Misses Death: Salena Godden

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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.

Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted by her job and now seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. First of, what an intriguing book title! When I first read it, I thought the book would be about the couple of death, but I was way off. The tone of Mrs Death Misses Death is the equivalent of starting an essay with: ‘Good afternoon. My essay will cover the topic of X. In this essay, I will explore X, Y, and Z.’ …while also struggling to hit the required word count. It was somehow simultaneously convoluted and too on the nose. Let's start with a couple things: this is not a novel, story or even really a narrative of any kind. Second, I skimmed the last half hoping for some semblance of an "ah-ha, I get it" moment; but sadly it never materialized. This doesn’t read as clever or intelligent to me. Harambe? Is that supposed to be funny? It feels outdated.Dark at times – with compelling stories about miscarriages of justice, murder and racial oppression – it is nonetheless celebratory and life-affirming, aglow with love, fortitude and compassion - Daily Mail I am seldom so enraged by a book that I feel the need to write a scathing review, but this book has done it. In one fell swoop, it has achieved the coveted status as being one of the worst pieces of writing I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Honestly, it felt like it was written by a disturbed group of Year 8 drama students trying to impress their classmates by making relentless reference to death and how miserable and gloomy it is.

The author’s depiction of Mrs Death is of a woman who enjoys an evening by the TV with Wolf, a glass of red wine in hand, rather than the traditional scythe. Dreary is simply not her style. The absurd is also employed as a safe space to explore uncomfortable truths about life (and death). The character of the Desk - more specifically Mrs. Death’s desk - communicates its disappointment at the cards it has been dealt by fate. From there, her narration and how she spoke started to form, imagining how she might write letters or diaries or songs or poems, what she might eat, or how she might appear, as Billie Holiday, as Nina Simone, as well as the girl behind the counter selling your tobacco, or the woman in the hospital mopping the floor in the cancer ward. Kind of invisible as well as prominent – powerful.” Thank you NetGalley and Canongate for a copy of Mrs Death misses death by Salena Godden. When I requested this, I was expecting something completely different to what I just read in a good way. Salena Godden is featured on the Waterstones blog about writing her debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, and how we respond to death across the country. Now, If you told the 1990s me that 2020s me would be standing here today, that she would be thriving and healthy and happy and making the work she wants to make, she would not believe it. She was self doubting and self sabotaging, she was rejected and underestimated, struggling in a world that told her that her story, her voice, her work did not belong and did not matter.

Nearly 4.5) 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. Photos from the studio, starting work on the ‘Mrs Death Misses Death’ audio book. Experimenting with her enchantment, her rich, smoky, otherworldly voice, enjoying this part of the creative process.