Death of an Ordinary Man

There was relief, and there was loss – it was the saddest thing we’d ever seen, and the best thing we had ever done.

This is the story of the last days of Sarah Perry’s father-in-law David's life, and also in its way the story of all our lives, and what we have in common.

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, eventually with the help of carers and visiting nurses - but his disease progressed so quickly that often they were alone with him. 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.

Death of an Ordinary Man is an unforgettable account of this universal aspect of life. It is not a book about grief: it is a book about dying, and it is a book about family, and care and love.