‘As I resigned myself to the fact that the latest Household Guide I’d written would be my last, I conceived in a flash the best idea ever. I rang Nancy and left a message. ‘Think of the title,’ I said. ‘How catchy does The Household Guide to Dying sound?’
Delia Bennet is the author of a series of household guides, as well as being a quirky and popular domestic advice columnist. After battling unsuccessfully with cancer, she knows it’s time to get her own house in order, both literally and emotionally. She wants to secure the future for her beloved husband, Archie, and their two daughters, and to make sure they will cope without her. And she decides that the best thing she can do while she is dying is to write about it, and thus compile the ultimate title in her series of household guides.
But as she writes lists and makes plans, questions both large and small arise. Should she divulge her best culinary secrets? Read her favourite novels one last time? Plan her daughters’ far-off weddings? What, she is forced to consider, are the most important things to cherish when one is on the verge of dying?
Complicating her dilemma is the past that she and Archie left behind after a tragedy years before. Pulled by the claims of her daughters and her home as much as by the ties of the past, Delia eventually returns to the remote country town in Queensland where she had met Archie, in an attempt to find something important to her.
Researching and writing her final Household Guide, Delia inevitably confronts the pieces of herself she has smothered for too long. And in her strange quest she learns that what matters is not the past but the present – and that the art of dying is all about truly living.
This is a novel in which the sublime and the ordinary rub shoulders: poetry and housework, cemeteries and chickens, mothering and lawnmowing. Fresh, witty, deeply moving – and a celebration of love, family and that place we call home – Delia’s unforgettable story will surprise and delight the reader until the very last page.
What the critics are saying about The Household Guide to Dying:
‘Deliciously maverick … dazzlingly original.’ The Age
‘The Household Guide to Dying ticks all the boxes ... moving yet witty ... extraordinarily uplifting.’ The Courier-Mail [Debra Adelaide] has deftly brought this story to life in an entertaining and highly original way.’ Bookseller & Publisher
‘A novel about loving and grieving ... filled with humour, warmth and sadness – just like life.’ Good Reading
‘The Household Guide to Dying [leaves] you feeling enriched, uplifted and very glad indeed that you read it.’ The Australian Women’s Weekly
‘Adelaide masterfully portrays the desperate duality of a woman who is learning to let go while still wanting to hold tight for dear life … surprising and moving.’ Sunday Telegraph
‘A totally satisfying, must-read novel of love and loss.’ Life etc magazine
‘A bravura performance.’ The Daily Mail (UK)
‘Caustic and hilarious, as well as heart-warming. A clever read that stays with you for a long time.’ RED Magazine (UK)
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Debra Adelaide, Geraldine Doogue and Picador Publisher, Rod Morrison at the launch of The Household Guide to Dying
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Debra Adelaide and radio presenter Geraldine Doogue at the launch of The Household Guide to Dying
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‘The Household Guide to Dying is very, very clever … I was quickly hooked by this deceptively low-key novel and the predicament of its non-nonsense (but deliciously witty) protagonist. But what makes this novel something truly special is its loving tribute to motherhood – setting all its myriad annoyances and imperfections alongside heartfelt sentences of devotion that will make your heart ache, rich as they are with the foreknowledge of impending loss. It’s a cliché to say “this novel will make you laugh and cry”. But it will.’ Jo Case, Readings
‘The Household Guide to Dying is a novel I just didn’t want to end. The main character Delia Bennett is so inspirational, gutsy and quirky that I found I was laughing and crying on the same page. Australian author Debra Adelaide has written a beautiful story with a level of honesty and insight about dying: a difficult and sensitive subject. The book is very down to earth and wickedly funny. As Delia’s past and present interweaves and unfolds I was privy to those small but significant day-to-day moments that connected me to a very special family. If your reading time is limited, this Australian novel should be your number one choice.’ Barbara Horgan, Shearers on Norton
From Readings Monthly:
Review | Thursday 29 May 2008
The Household Guide To Dying: Debra Adelaide
Review by Jo Case, editor of Readings Monthly
This book is being touted as THE Australian novel of the year. Debra Adelaide has been on the local literary scene for decades, and has ten books behind her, but she netted a $1 million advance for this one. Coming to the book in the shadow of all this hype, I was – I’ll admit – prepared to hate it. But I was quickly hooked by this deceptively low-key novel and the predicament of its non-nonsense (but deliciously witty) protagonist, an advice columnist and bestselling author of a series of household guides to laundry, cooking, and other lost domestic ‘arts’.
Delia is dying of breast cancer. She has had her final – useless – chemotherapy treatment and is waiting to die. As she ties up loose ends and reflects on her life so far, she finds herself haunted by her stay in a small northern NSW town, Amethyst, where she arrived as a pregnant single mother-to-be, and the tragic events that took place there, decades ago. She detours from her domestic kingdom, where she writes her advice column, makes school lunches, whips up nourishing meals and cuddles her chickens, in an attempt to tie up the loosest end of all. And of course, in the midst of it all, she has decided to face death the most practical way she knows how: writing a book about it, her final one: The Household Guide to Dying.
Delia is a delightfully eccentric character, balancing her innate quirkiness with an almost matronly practicality and a frightening mastery of the household ‘arts’. It’s this unlikely balance that is most endearing about her. She secretly makes blood sausages with her own blood and pops them in the freezer for her unsuspecting family to eat when she’s gone. (‘I put myself into this dish.’) She poses with a martini glass in her own coffin for her book cover. She tells her grieving husband that she’d quite like him to marry his bookkeeper after she’s gone. And she hopes that her publisher can organise for dumpbins of her book to be available at her funeral.
The Household Guide to Dying is very, very clever. It’s packed with ruminations of the lost significance of the household arts and what we’d call ‘women’s work’, but also of their more masculine domestic counterparts, like gardening and lawnmowing (Delia’s husband’s job). There are Austen references galore, in-jokes aimed at herself (‘Motherlove? You’re joking,’ says Delia when her editor suggests it as a title – it’s actually one of Adelaide’s), and lots of witty asides on words, editing and the love of books. But what makes this novel something truly special is its loving tribute to motherhood – setting all its myriad annoyances and imperfections alongside heartfelt sentences of devotion that will make your heart ache, rich as they are with the foreknowledge of impending loss. It’s a cliché to say ‘this novel will make you laugh and cry’. But it will.
From The Brisbane Courier-Mail:
May 31- June 1 2008
A BOOK about a dying woman has the potential to be a downer, but guest reviewer Teresa Keleher insists The Household Guide To Dying is an uplifting read.
"My absolutely favourite part of the book is the last chapter," Keleher says of Debra Adelaide's novel, which is the featured title for June for The Courier-Mail's Big Book Club.
"In the end, that's when the lead character achieves absolute clarity of what life's all about," she says. "It's extraordinarily uplifting and I've gone back to read it again and again."
The Household Guide To Dying (Picador, $29.95) tells the tale of Delia Bennet, an author and domestic advice columnist who learns she has terminal cancer. She sets about putting her house in order, planning for the weddings her daughters may never have, writing down her culinary secrets, ensuring she somehow lives on for her family after her death.
It's a tribute to Adelaide's skills that the book is moving yet witty and that has been recognised by publishers around the world. The Household Guide to Dying has sold into 11 countries so far, with more to come.
Keleher, a former cultural attache for Australia in the United States, says it's an ideal title for book clubs. "When you look for a suitable title for book clubs you should try to choose something that challenges readers, something that you might not normally read and something very readable. The Household Guide to Dying ticks all the boxes, although it did take some time to get used to the lack of punctuation between narration and conversation. However, once you do, you realise that it works very well."
The book also resonated with Keleher as she returned to Brisbane two years ago to care for her terminally ill sister.
"My sister died in exactly the same way as the character in the book, writing lists and giving instructions on what to do at her daughters' weddings," she says.