MRS DEATH MISSES DEATH

"This book contains traces of ghosts." What a wonderfully evocative thought. And this audiobook is full of them. Irish-Jamaican poet, activist, memoirist, and broadcaster Salena Godden narrates her short prose and poetry with straight-up intensity and pulsing rhythm. Weaving childhood memories of a devastating apartment fire with Neil-Gaiman-like fantasy and dark Grimm's fairy-tale imagery of towers, wolves, and witches, Godden approaches the subject of death from seemingly every possible angle. With her alluring mix of lilting Irish and sweet Jamaican accents, Godden praises, berates, cajoles, and harangues her ever-changing character Mrs. Death, who is sometimes an "old, homeless beggar woman with knotty, natty hair" and sometimes a medieval time traveler with inexhaustible vocal energy. B.P. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2021]