Reviews for The Household Guide to Dying

The average rating for The Household Guide to Dying based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-01-31 00:00:00 Matthew Rasanen Don't let the title fool you, or at least read the whole title, which continues "a novel about life". Because that's certainly what it is. The main character, Delia, is an advice columnist for domestic stuff, as well as a writer of several books based on a modern and cheeky interpretation of the 1861 classic "Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management". She also happens to be a mother with a loving husband, two young daughters, and end-stage cancer. She figures that her final book should be, in fact, how to manage a household dealing with death. She's flippant, upbeat, well read and extremely funny while dealing with enormous issues head-on (mostly) and unflinchingly. The book moves around in time a bit, back and forth between 17 year old Delia who was making her way in the world as an unwed teenage mother in a small town and the current organized, irreverent, dying-in-as-practical-way-as-she-can Delia. The scope and generosity of her story is difficult to pull away from--there are quiet insights throughout the book that sneak up on you in unexpected ways but hit you like a hammer. It's a charming and ultimately hopeful story that I sincerely gets a lot of attention--it deserves it.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-05-13 00:00:00 Brent Weiner '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