Novels about death

[HealthyFats]

I’m reading a lot of non-fiction about death at the moment- not sure why, maybe some sort of mid-life crisis. I’d like to add in some fiction and am looking for suggestions.

Nothing gory please- I mean more fiction about people considering the end of life, trying to make sense of being mortal. May or may not feature actual death. (I realise you could argue that all art is about death in some way, so I suppose I mean novels where it is more explicitly the case.)

Thank you.

Also interested in more non fic x

Hamnet. (Contains the death of a child) I wept buckets.

Sue Black’s (forensic anthropologist) books whose names escape me right now but are excellent non fiction.

Cariad Lloyd 'you are not alone'. I haven't read it yet but her Griefcast podcasts are really good. The discuss grief and death very frankly.

Fiction I can only really think of Patrick Gale's Notes from an exhibition but I guess that's more focused on mental health and depression rather than death.

Rabbit at Rest by John Updike is good on death. You don’t necessarily have to read the others first.

There is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which is narrated by Death. I hated it, though.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy.

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov? About an obituary writer.

How To Stop Time by Matt Haig.

A fine balance by rohinton mistry is a fabulous book and though not about death specifically it features and the whole thread through the book is rather meaning of life-ish through the examination of various lives lived.

Exit by Belinda Bauer

After the End Claire Mackintosh not like her other fiction, it's child related so bear that in mind. It is about the conflict involved for parents of a child when they don't agree on care and also fight with medical opinion

Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan

The Midnight Library

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Though that’s mostly post-mortem.

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin. Wonderfully written.

I just read The Raptures...can't remember the author. Loads of mind blowing stuff about death, so beautifully written.

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion might be some of the best writing I’ve ever read on the death of a loved one.
Zero K, Don de Lillo - separating death and consciousness. Stunning passage positing what the brain does when cut loose from the body.

Fiction:

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

I Heard the Owl Call my Name by Margaret Craven

Grief is a Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

Non fiction:

My Father’s Wake by Kevin Toolis

How We Die by Sherwin B Nuland

Another fiction one - Being Dead by Jim Crace

Another non-fiction - Stiff by Mary Roach

Maybe Burial Rights by Hannah Kent.

I've just finished Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli. Sort of about death - story of a young woman dealing with her husband's suicide. Stunningly good - but perhaps not quite what you are after.

@FeelingsAreNotFacts and @Tryphenia I’ve read both of these in the last week and loved them both. I don’t think I’ve cried at a book as much as I did reading A Monsters Calls, I was a proper snotty mess!

For nonfiction try Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons From the Crematory by Catlin Doughty. It’s about Doughty’s experiences of working in a crematorium and dispels a lot of the myths around death.

The Harry Potter series deals with death from many different angles (ghosts, dying friends, villains trying to be immortal, dead parents, facing death yourself) and it’s quite moving and very well done. Her mum died while she wrote the books and it shows.

Joan Didion, both Magical Thinking and Blue Nights.