The Language of Dying

This review is for the 2016 rerelease of Sarah Pinborough's novella, The Language of Dying, published by Jo Fletcher Books. This novella was a 2010 Shirley Jackson Nominee for novellas, and a 2010 winner of BFA for novellas.

The Language of Dying is only nominally a fantasy novel. Depending on where the reader falls in the spectrum of belief, this story could be read as a story about a woman who experienced contact with a supernatural being during three traumatic times in her life, or could be about a mentally ill woman who experienced three mental breaks during three traumatic times. The author never leads the reader one way or the other, so it is ultimately up to the reader to decide. I personally tend to lean towards the mental illness side of the spectrum, but then again I am a bitter middle aged woman at this point and may no longer be able to appreciate the fantastic!

This is the story of a family gathering together for the death of the patriarch of the clan. To call this family dysfunctional would be an understatement. Each child returning home is broken in some way. The Middle child, the woman who has been caring for her father and the protagonist of the novel has at best a tenuous grip on reality, the older daughter is unable to deal with confrontation and lives her life in willing ignorance. The eldest brother is shallow and constantly in financial ruin, and of the youngest, twin boys, one is a drug addict and the other is a diagnosed schizophrenic. Besides being siblings, these five people are strangers to each other.

Unspoken but threaded throughout the novel is the concept of running away in all its various forms. There is no mother in this family, as she walked out on her family when the children were small. This event culminated in the first supernatural contact for the protagonist. The narrator throughout the novel experiences moments of "drifting" she just checks out when things get to hard. This is her way of escaping. The twins escapes are obvious.

This really was a gorgeous little nugget of a novel. Although not necessarily a genre novel, it is a beautiful and tragic story.