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A freshly insightful, hopeful, and dramatic novel full of heart and life-told from the perspective of a household advice columnist, wife, and mother who is determined to finish a lifetime's worth of tasks even though she doesn't have a lifetime left to live.
T he Household Guide to Dying is a moving, witty, and uplifting novel about Delia, who writes an acerbic and wildly popular household advice column. When Delia realizes that she is losing her long battle with cancer, she decides to organize her remaining months-and her husband and children's future lives without her-the same way she has always ordered their household. Unlike the many faithful readers of her advice column-people who are rendered lost and confused when faced with dirty shirt collars-Delia knows just what to do. She will leave a list for her daughter's future wedding; fill the freezer with homemade sausages, stews, and sauces; and even (maddeningly) offer her husband suggestions for a new wife. She'll compile a lifetime's worth of advice for her children, and she'll even write the ultimate "Household Guide to Dying" for her fans. There is one item on her list, however, that proves too much even for "Dear Delia," and it is the single greatest task she had set for herself. Yet just as Delia is coming to terms with this, an unexpected visitor helps her believe in her life's worth in a way that no list ever could.
Imbued with Delia's love for food, Jane Austen, clucking hens, and fragrant gardens, and interspersed with her secrets to making a pot of tea, removing wine stains from lace, and the ingredients to the perfect wedding cake, this is a gorgeously crafted novel that captures the reader-heart and mind-and expands our understanding of a meaningful life.
Domestic advice columnist Delia is terminally ill, but she has a few loose ends she'd like to wrap up before cancer takes her from her husband and two daughters in Australian novelist Adelaide's ho-hum latest. Though Delia makes lists that encompass everything from the morning routine to planning her daughters' weddings, hoping to control what will come after she is gone, much of what is on her mind is her distant past in the small town of Amethyst, where she lived after she left home at 17 to raise her firstborn. Adelaide metes that portion out slowly, and readers will have figured out the twists long before she gets there. What Delia faces and remembers about her time in Amethyst leaves her better able to face gracefully her own imminent departure, which she chronicles in an advice book. That project leads to some off-kilter scenes (such as Delia observing an autopsy and casket shopping), and though the book ends sweetly, Delia's distant narrative tone and the erratic time line rob the tale of emotional impact. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
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Brent Weiner
reviewed The Household Guide to Dying on May 13, 2016 The Household Guide to Dying
'The first thing I did this morning was visit the chickens.'
Delia Bennet, wife and mother aged 39, is dying. Between now, and then, there is a lot Delia wants to accomplish. She has her lists of things to do, her loose ends to tie up, her planning for her husband and daughters once she is dead. Delia is also writing her final book: 'The Household Guide to Dying', the last in a Household Guide series which has included the Garden, Home Maintenance, Kitchen and Laundry. She will address themes such as Palliative Care, Funeral Festivities and Wills and Wishes. She won't, lacking the necessary experience, address the afterlife.
'I could have been lots of things. And yet I had become a dying mother with a book that possibly would never be finished.'
Delia wants to say goodbye to her daughters Daisy and Estelle, to her husband Archie. She wants to prepare them for her death. And it's hard: balancing what Delia thinks their needs will be in the future with their (and her) current needs. How do you prepare for a future that you are no longer an active part of? Delia's life is rich and layered: her research for her book - including attending an autopsy, her regular column of domestic advice, her family. Delia may be dying, but she's not sitting around waiting for it to happen.
'It was natural to want to tie up the dangling threads before you died. These threads had tripped me up too often over the years,'
Delia needs to revisit her past. Her life as a pregnant 17 year old in a Queensland country town called Amethyst. Delia's two week solo visit to Amethyst is a very special part of this novel: can she find what she is searching for?
'Death is a condition, but dying is an act, I said. It's a noun versus a verb.'
I loved this book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me think. It made me wonder, too, about the fine line between fact and fiction. This novel really appeals to me: it's the combination of a strong, likeable character, humour, the balance between the important and the mundane.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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