Guest Post: Sarah Pinborough Gives Us 5 Books that Cast New Light on Death

Mort, by Terry Pratchett
Only Terry Pratchett could have made millions of readers—me included—fall in love with Death himself. On the day the late great Mr. Pratchett’s death was sadly announced, social media was awash with quotes from this book, and I think it’s a fitting tribute. Although a comic caper following Death’s new apprentice, Mort, as he tries to get to grips with his new role, as with all Pratchett’s works there are deeper themes being played with, primarily death and our pointless fear of it.
As an aside, I once had a bookend statue of Pratchett’s Mort. I had brought it back from my parents’ house and it was still in my car. One winter, my ex-husband was out driving along icy country road and flipped the car. As he lay there, upside down, reflecting on how lucky he was to be alive, the dashboard opened and Death fell out onto his head. The cut on his head from that was the only injury he sustained, and it still makes me giggle to think about it. Thanks Terry, for making us fond of Death.

Pet Semetary, by Stephen King
This one is not so cheery, but remains one of my favourite horror novels of all time. Louis Creed, a doctor and his family and their pet cat, Church, move to a small town. Although the set-up should be idyllic, a sense of foreboding hangs over the beginning of the novel. Creed’s wife Rachel is full of anxieties about death after the death of her sister Zelda when they were young, Creed himself is the subject of the final words of a young man dying after being in a car accident and who he later sees him in an unsettling dream. The real problems for the family start when the beloved cat, Church (read what you will into the name) is killed and Creed wants to bury him the the local “Pet Semetary.”
So far, so good…but a neighbor, wanting to thank Creed for saving his wife’s life, leads him to the real cemetery beyond, a place that was once an Indian burial ground. Creed buries the cat there, and then, in the night, Church digs himself out of his grave and comes back. As further tragedy strikes, Creed, unable to cope with his grief, and ignoring warnings, returns to the burial ground, with terrible consequences. With a hefty nod to ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, but a flavour all of it’s own (mainly grave dirt) Pet Semetary reminds us that death is natural and it’s better to let our loved ones go and grieve than to upset the balance of nature.

The Silent Land, by Graham Joyce
This is a beautiful and heart-breaking short novel from a writer deserving of a far wider audience and greater recognition during his lifetime. When married couple Jake and Zoe are buried in an avalanche on a ski-ing holiday, they dig themselves out and make their way back to the resort, but find it empty, all appearances indicating that everyone else fled in a hurry. At first there is no cause for alarm, but slowly the couple realise that all is not as it seems. Food isn’t rotting. Candles that burned slowly at first, start to burn more quickly down.
As the clues that perhaps the couple aren’t really trapped in the resort, but perhaps somewhere else, somewhere between, Joyce focusses on the lives of the couple and their marriage and relationship, interspersed with each one’s memories of their own dying fathers. The theme of partnership, of long-term marriage is strong here, as is the theme of life and death, and humanity’s determination to hold on to life for as long as possible, even when on the cusp of inevitable death. This is a book about learning to let it go. An extraordinary, powerful book from an author who’s been compared with Haruki Murakami and Ian McEwan.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North
Harry August is unafraid of death. Because Harry August doesn’t really die. After his first death, he finds himself reborn, once again in a 1920s railway station—into the exactly the same life. To the same parents. With the same experiences. But -and here’s the somewhat Groundhog Day key to the story—he still has all his memories of his previous life. When Harry dies again, he’s reborn again. On the eve of his eleventh death in 1996, a little girl appears at his bedside and says, “I nearly missed you, Doctor August. I need to send a message.”
Thus Harry’s adventures begin. There are others like Harry, most part of a cabal called ‘The Cronos Club’ and they use their memories of lives lived to pass messages and information to the past and the future. And of course, people have been messing with the future and a potential apocalypse is coming. This is a tightly-plotted thriller, but is also about what is the point of living without risks, and what is a life if there is no death, and trying to find a point in your existence when you know everything that is to come. A must-read that will leave your head spinning and make you reflect on your own life and choices made.

Biblical, by Christopher Galt
This is a slight curve-ball for the list, because although not really about death per se, it does explore the concept of our very reality. Dr John Macbeth is a psychiatrist at the ‘Copenhagen Cognitive Mapping Project’ where the team is trying to replicate a human brain in a computer. His brother, Casey, is also involved in scientific research and has a conference to attend in London regarding “The Prometheus Answer”—a definitive explanation for how the universe works. These two concepts—our human existence and the nature of the universe—sit at the core of this sci-fi thriller.
As people around the world start experiences strange vision and the past playing out in the present, John MacBeth finds himself in a race against time uncover the truth of what is happening to the world before the world destroys itself. I love a book that makes me question the nature of my very existence, and this did that. How much do we really understand reality anyway?
The Death House is available now.