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From Drag Queens to Leathermen: Language, Gender, and Gay Male Subcultures

Rusty Barrett

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This book examines gendered language use in six gay male subcultures: drag queens, radical faeries,...

Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine

Omer Bartov

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In Erased, Omer Bartov uncovers the rapidly disappearing vestiges of the Jews of western Ukraine,...

ClareR (5726 KP) rated Mrs Death Misses Death in Books

Feb 15, 2021

Mrs Death Misses Death

Salena Godden | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy

9.0

(2 Ratings)

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This is such an original idea: Mrs Death. Death in this book is a black, working class woman. This turns on its head everything we’ve all grown up believing about Death, and I love this. Why shouldn’t Death be a woman? As it says in the book:
“For surely only she who bears it, she who gave you life, can be she who has the power to take it.”
Seems logical to me.
“And there is no human more invisible, more easily talked over, ignored, betrayed and easy to walk past than a woman; than a poor old black woman.”
The thought of walking past death on a daily basis and not realising that’s who you’re passing, is rather a disconcerting thought!
I liked the playful language, starting with the title and moving on through prose mixed with poetry, and parts were written in script form too. This wasn’t reading for the lazy: it kept me on my toes. The historical deaths seen from Death’s point of view were fascinating too.
I did find myself wishing that Mrs Death had found herself another ghost writer, because Wolf Willeford is clearly a vulnerable person with mental health issues - I did wonder if it was written to illustrate a form of psychosis.
Either way, I loved it and read it FAR too quickly. If this is Salena Godden’s first foray into prose, I will be looking out for what she writes next - and looking out for some of her poetry too, when I can get back in to a library!
Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-copy of this book through NetGalley.