Book Review - 'The Life of Death' by Lucy Booth
I ‘picked’ up this book on my Kindle on the strength of the back-cover blurb alone, knowing nothing about the author.
‘One soul. One pact with the Devil. One chance at love.
Elizabeth Murray has been condemned to burn at the stake. As she awaits her fate, a strange, handsome man visits her cell. He offers her a deal: her soul in return for immortality, but what he offers is not a normal life. To survive Elizabeth must become Death itself.
Elizabeth must ease the passing of all those who die, appearing at the point of death and using her compassion to guide them over the threshold. She accepts and, for 500 years, whirls from one death to the next, never stopping to think of the life she never lived. Until one day, everything changes. She – Death – falls in love.
Desperate to escape the terms of her deal, she summons the man who saved her. He agrees to release her on one condition: that she gives him five lives. These five lives she must take herself, each one more difficult and painful than the last.’
The story is told in first person, by the main character, and the way she introduces herself is almost poetic in its forthright manner.
“I am there when you are born. When you cross the road. When the live wire frays in a Bakelite plug. I am there in the hospital canteen, by the frozen pond, in the carbon monoxide fug of a terraced living room. I am waiting, with open arms and solace.
I am Death.”
This Death is different from the usual portrayal of “a man in a shabby, hooded cloak with… scythe poised to cut you down.”
This Death is gentle, comforting, “there to carry you through those last moments… and deposit you softly, gently on the other side.”
This Death never takes life; they are given to her by Him, always referred to with a capital ‘H’. Who is this ‘Him’?
“He is the Devil. In 1590, I sold my soul to the Devil. I was twenty-three.”
Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ Murray is born in 1567 “in the tiny village of Tranent, clinging to the fraying skirt hems of Scotland as they dragged into the icy waters of the North Sea.”
Like her mother and grandmother before her, together with the women of her family, and other women from the village, she practices healing, be it for human or animal. Lizzy has a special talent for it.
Those who seek their services are grudgingly grateful and contemptuous in equal measure. And are the first to point their fingers when the King’s men come to rid the land of witchcraft and those devoted to the Devil.
“Shackled to the wall and strapped into a witch’s bridle”, Lizzy is strung up in a cell for days, waiting her turn to be burnt at the stake.
As the nights pass, she becomes aware of a voice. And eventually sees Him.
Immaculately dressed, “his skin is alabaster white”, he offers her a deal. In exchange for her life, all he wants is her soul.
Lizzy holds out for days as the other women are led to the stake.
Until the day it is her mother’s turn. He promises to lead her to her mother’s side; in His presence, no one will see Lizzy.
And she accepts His offer.
She becomes Death; “little D”, He calls her.
For over 400 years, she performs her duty admirably, the protector of a person’s final journey and the buffer that shields the Devil from the effects of death while still providing him nourishment.
Booth’s version of the Devil is not immune to the effects of a person’s death, especially those who die scared and in pain; it physically hurts him. Having another, willing soul perform the duty of Death protects him while allowing him to be nourished by Death’s soul.
I found that idea intriguing. Another thing I liked is that Lizzy takes on the guise of a female figure who is most loved by the dying person – a mother, sister, wife, best friend.
After the passing of too many years, Lizzy no longer feels pride in the work she does. She’s started to find it “cold, this life without life… my core remains cold… Do you know how monotonous endless life can become?”
Her work is “a constant whirl from bedside to battlefield, from a lonely kitchen table to the plastic incubator on the hospital ward…”, almost nonstop.
Too few and too brief are the moments between deaths. But while she floats “unbidden in the darkness”, she’s reminded that she has “no one, and nothing” for she’s distanced herself from her previous life.
Then, one day, completely unexpected, not looked for, she falls in love.
At the hospital bedside of a young woman, Lizzy is drawn to the woman’s husband, Tom. And is gripped with an overwhelming need to live, to love.
When Lizzy tells the Devil she wants her soul back, at first He rages before deciding to set her a challenge. The price for the return of her soul is 5 deaths of His choosing.
And that is the meat of the story.
Lizzy is an interesting character, sympathetic and complex. Her moments with the dying as she assists them, calming them and helping them accept their death, are beautiful and tender. Even though, as she says, her core remains cold, her demeanour is anything but.
Booth’s version of the Devil comes across as fascinating. He’s a villain, no doubt, but an intriguing, charismatic one. Even his villainous moments portray him as more than a cardboard cut-out. And he appears to take pleasure in mortal delights, like enjoying an ice-cream at the beach.
I like Booth’s writing. Her style is almost poetic. Some might find it a bit exaggerated, but it suits the subject matter. One thing that did annoy me – the ever-increasing number of sentence fragments. As my editor told me (to cure me of my over-reliance of the same), less is definitely more.
Booth’s vivid descriptions suit each scene well…
Standing at a graveside… “With the first fat drops of rain comes a morbid bloom of black umbrellas.”
Describing the large number of reporters near the scene of a missing child… “terriers at the edge of a rabbit hole, held static in time by the scent of a story.”
Speaking of a teenager not wanting to be picked on by her schoolfriends… “a fourteen-year-old fighting for survival in the tundra of a school playground.”
Booth doesn’t pull any punches when describing the different deaths we encounter in this story, from the ‘easier’ welcome deaths at the end of a long life to the shock of sudden death and the refusal to accept it. Neither does she sugarcoat the grief of the bereaved.
As much as I liked this book, there was one thing that didn’t sit right with me.
While it was the premise of Death falling in love that drew me to this book, I did not enjoy the execution of it.
Lizzy falls in love in an instant, knowing nothing about Tom and he, obviously, knows nothing of her or that she even exists. Although I understand her wanting out of her deal with the Devil, as risky as that is, to have ‘insta-love’ as her sole reason, I found hard to swallow.
I wasn’t convinced by that part of the story because it didn’t seem a strong enough, valid enough reason to justify the taking of 5 lives, especially when there’s no guarantee Tom will feel anything for Lizzy.
I know I’m contradicting myself when I say I found this a good read while also saying I didn’t like the parts that spoke of Lizzy’s reasoning for wanting to be with Tom. Those parts I struggled with and could feel my annoyance growing.
But, taking those parts out, I liked the rest of it – the writing style and descriptions; the portrayal of Death and the way she performs her duty; the depiction of the Devil; the well-handled back story of characters who are on the verge of death.
And the ending. I thought I knew how it would end, but I was wrong. Deftly handled.
This is not an easy read. It took me the better part of 2 weeks to finish as I had to take my time with it and step away every now and again to ‘gather’ myself.
The reason – because of the book’s theme, parts of the novel contain vivid descriptions, which are not for the faint of heart. Also, while the portrayals of some deaths are moving, others require a strong disposition.
What makes this book especially poignant – Lucy Booth was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011. She died in 2016, only 37 years old. The novel was published posthumously.
A very sad loss for her family and friends, and a sad loss for the book world.