Death of an Ordinary Man

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION AWARD 2025**
*LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2026*

'Please read this book. It may very well change how you live' Rachel Clarke

'I was spellbound' Kathryn Mannix

This is not a book about grief: it is a book about dying, the universal aspect of life, and it is a book about family, and care and love.

Sarah Perry's father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. Until then he'd been a healthy and happy man: he loved stamp collecting, fish and chips, comic novels, his local church, and the Antiques Roadshow. He was in some ways a very ordinary man, but as he began to die, it became clear how extraordinary he was.

Sarah and her husband Robert nursed David themselves at home. They bathed and cleaned and dressed him, comforted him in pain, sat with him through waking and sleeping, talked to him, sang to him, prayed with him. Day by day and hour by hour, they witnessed what happens to the body and spirit as death approaches and finally arrives.

'Beautiful and profound and completely gripping' Mark Haddon

'We cannot be but somewhat changed by this remarkable book' Daily Telegraph

'By the end I was left shaken, deeply moved' Christos Tsiolkas

'This book will be a lifeline for so many people' Seán Hewitt

'Sarah is in a league of her own as a writer - I don't know how she does it' Sara Collins

'A love letter to life that resonates far beyond its own pages' Robert Douglas-Fairhurst