The Language of Dying

Sometimes it's nice to start a book in the morning and finish it within a couple of hours. The language of Dying is a novella by Sarah Pinborough which focusses on the unnamed narrator's bedside vigil as her father slowly dies of cancer. Over the course of a few days, she slowly comes to terms with his gradual deterioration whilst simultaneously trying to deal with the 4 siblings who make up the remains of her slowly splintering family.

This is nominally a fantasy novella, with only one fantastic element in the story - the black creature (I won't say what it apparently is but the cover illustration above does point you in the right direction.) that appears to the narrator at three points in her lifetime. That element could be easily removed and The Language of Dying would still remain a sensitive handling of a topic which most people would try to avoid thinking about in the same way that certain members of the narrator's family quickly visit their dying father and return to the own lives as quickly as they can.

Recommended reading, then but bleak and in many ways unsettling.