Death of an Ordinary Man

I have not been moved like this by a book in a very long time. Death of an Ordinary Man is a masterful piece of writing. It gives dignity and weight to something as ordinary, as extraordinary, as death. By redeeming a common experience in all its intimacy, panic, disorientation and unexpected light, this book will be a lifeline for so many people. Those of us who have witnessed the death of a loved one will thank Sarah Perry for witnessing us in return.

Sarah Perry is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Enlightenment, Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood, and the non-fiction Essex Girls. She is a winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award. Enlightenment was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 and her other work has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Now I understand there are no ordinary lives – that every death is the end of a single event in time’s history: an event so improbable as to be miraculous, and irreplaceable in every particular. 
 
Sarah Perry's father-in-law, David, died at home nine days after a cancer diagnosis and having previously been in the good health. The speed of his illness outstripped that of the NHS and social care, so the majority of nursing fell to Sarah and her husband. They witnessed what happens to the body and spirit, hour by hour, as it approaches death. 
 
Death of an Ordinary Man is an unstinting account of death by cancer, a reportage into the daily experience of caring, an exploration of the structural conditions of dying in the UK, and most importantly a testament to David’s life, that of an ordinary man. 
 
Unflinching and profoundly moving, Sarah Perry confronts the taboo surrounding death and shows us how to confront all of the terror and beauty that comes with the end of life - and how the saddest thing she has ever seen is also the best thing she's ever done.

Sarah Perry

Gauzy and unhurried, a genteel novel of inner space. It’s luxuriously – defiantly – old-fashioned... Perry has always produced gorgeous prose, and she has found a new, ethereal register in this book

A genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories... A heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet

A rich, surprising book that dazzles and dizzies the reader. It balances reason with belief, excels in both ideas and action, and, though firmly placed in Perry’s homeland of Essex, it’s a book with cosmic reach

Extraordinary and ambitious... What Perry has done in this layered, intelligent and moving book is to construct a kind of quantum novel, one that asks us to question conventional linear narratives and recognise instead what is ever-present in Perry’s luminous vision of Essex: truth, beauty and love

Dazzling… Faith and science can inspire out-of-time cosmic wonder, but as Perry beautifully demonstrates here, so, too, can the novel

Sarah Perry just gets better and better… A fat, satisfying, grown-up novel – rich in plot, characters, ideas, structure, and atmosphere… It hangs together as a resplendent whole, shining like a night sky

Gorgeously written… A beautiful, compassionate and memorable book, one that will repay reading more than once

Perry has returned with another cracker. A dazzling novel, full of big ideas about religion and science, love and friendship

It’s glorious, doing what her books do best: intertwining a love story with reams of esoteric learning and big ideas… This is a beautiful, memorable novel

Perry’s prose oozes with the richness of its Essex setting

Enlightenment is a complete masterwork — ambitious, crafted, truly artful. With its intersections of faith, physics, love and wisdom, I imagine we will be quoting lines from the novel for years to come. It holds page after page of luminous prose, playful intelligence, storyteller’s wit and companionship, and the rarest compassion. Like the comets within, the reader travels headlong through the book’s darkness and beauty, alongside universal laws and mysteries, aligning with both human matter and spirit. Sarah Perry is an extraordinary maker, of unique mind, sensibility and gifts; her writing is, as ever, lit by sheer brilliance

Sarah Hall, author of The Electric Michelangelo

An ambitious, poetic exploration of cosmic forces, love and faith. Defiantly old-fashioned, touched by the shades of AS Byatt and Wilkie Collins

Once again Sarah Perry has gifted us with an ambitious story impeccably imagined in poignant prose; a beautifully nuanced novel of love in all its aspects, artfully marrying faith and science into something truly beguiling

A book about grace, written with a faith in awe and in elemental love, Enlightenment is full of both ordinary and extraordinary wonders. Sarah Perry has brought all her wide empathy and joy to this novel: its characters are rich and vivid and tenderly human. Enlightenment is not only a book that seems to redeem its world, but to redeem its readers. It is a gift

Seán Hewitt, author of All Down Darkness Wide

A book in which everything is kindled into light by Sarah Perry’s rapt, luminous attention: friendship, betrayal, faith, astronomy, the drizzle on the streets of Essex and the heavens above them

No novel is ever perfect, but this one comes close. Read it, then read it again. This is a book full of unexpected wonders

John Burnside, author A Lie About My Father

Attuned to the fragile intimacies between lovers and friends, and acutely aware of the devastating cruelties that are routinely meted out between strangers, Enlightenment is a mesmerizing work of wondering and wonder. Filled with quiet epiphanies into the intricacies of the human condition filtered through the lens of science and religion, this is a profound and moving novel that invites the reader to regard the world around them with a more compassionate gaze

Perry has some superb set-pieces throughout the novel, almost in sync with the periodicity of the celestial bodies… A genuine talent… An immaculate book

Gorgeous, galvanic, omniscient, intimate and eminently giving, Enlightenment is a novel to live with and learn by. As I read it, I felt housed by it. And, damn, did the house have skylights. Sarah Perry is a national treasure, and this is her best book yet

Caoilinn Hughes, author of Orchid and the Wasp

Perry seamlessly blends an absorbing mystery with her principal characters’ personal conflicts to create a narrative as propulsive as it is emotionally resonant. Swiftly sketched but fully realized secondary characters give the novel a social texture more commonly found in Victorian literature, an impression bolstered by Perry’s intricately layered prose. Much of the story is sad, but a radiant finale suggests reconciliation and renewal. Thoughtful, sensitive and beautifully written

Perry’s enchanting latest blends a ghost story with a meditation on astronomy and loneliness anchored on the periodic reappearances of Halley’s Comet. Perry’s affection for her characters, even in their most flawed moments, adds to the fullness of their realization, as she makes it abundantly clear that the faults and frailties that distinguish them lie not in the stars but in themselves. Perry magnificently evokes the wonder of the cosmos

Perry's stunning, multilayered novel returns to the Essex countryside. Her shimmering prose draws readers gradually into the story, until suddenly, we are captivated by the rich, psychologically complex, and intimate characters as they grapple philosophically with issues of faith, religion, science, astronomy, and love in all its guises. With brilliant storytelling, Perry’s novel of dichotomies portrays how elliptical our lives are - very much like the movement of the stars

With its lush prose and thought-provoking themes, Enlightenment reaffirms Perry's place as one of contemporary fiction's brightest stars

With luminous prose and rich characters, you’ll get lost in the pages

A wonderfully rich whirl of characters, plot, language and ideas… Told in Sarah’s lucid yet luminous style the story seems to glow from the page

A remarkable new novel… jam-packed with big ideas, exquisitely written, and characterized by a dark narrative drive… It’s as good a novel as you’ll read this year

Perry’s juicy fourth novel seems to me pretty much the perfect summer read: strange, wondrous and, crucially, a book that refuses to be gobbled up in one sitting… Pretty much every unhurried sentence is a delight

This celestial-minded novel…is quintessential Perry. A richly layered epic

The author of The Essex Serpent just gets better and better: here is one of those rich, textured novels with a story to really sink into

Soul-satisfyingly substantial subjects are handled in gorgeously shaped sentences

Sarah Perry…creates worlds to disappear into, combining complex ideas and richly layered stories with beautiful, vivid prose. Her latest book is possibly her most ambitious yet

As rich and satisfying as any plum pudding

In Enlightenment [Perry] tracks patterns of unrequited love and cosmic wonder against the path of the Hale-Bopp comet, all done with her customary grace and lashings of atmosphere

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love.Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed.

Sarah Perry

Praise for Enlightenment

Gauzy and unhurried, a genteel novel of inner space. It’s luxuriously – defiantly – old-fashioned... Perry has always produced gorgeous prose, and she has found a new, ethereal register in this book

A genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories... A heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet

A rich, surprising book that dazzles and dizzies the reader. It balances reason with belief, excels in both ideas and action, and, though firmly placed in Perry’s homeland of Essex, it’s a book with cosmic ...

Gauzy and unhurried, a genteel novel of inner space. It’s luxuriously – defiantly – old-fashioned... Perry has always produced gorgeous prose, and she has found a new, ethereal register in this book

A genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories... A heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet

A rich, surprising book that dazzles and dizzies the reader. It balances reason with belief, excels in both ideas and action, and, though firmly placed in Perry’s homeland of Essex, it’s a book with cosmic ...

Gauzy and unhurried, a genteel novel of inner space. It’s luxuriously – defiantly – old-fashioned... Perry has always produced gorgeous prose, and she has found a new, ethereal register in this book

A genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories... A heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet

A rich, surprising book that dazzles and dizzies the reader. It balances reason with belief, excels in both ideas and action, and, though firmly placed in Perry’s homeland of Essex, it’s a book with cosmic ...

Books by Sarah Perry

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