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WINNER OF THE NERO NON FICTION AWARD 2026 LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2026 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON FICTION A spectacularly original memoir that’s at once an elegy for a beloved family member and a deeply moving meditation on what it means to be a mortal creature, from one of our greatest novelists. Death of an Ordinary Man opens on a charming, merry seaside scene in late August. Perry, her husband, and her father-in-law David are at the Yarmouth carnival they’ve gone to every summer for decades. The day was fine, Perry tells us, and the shining tide was going out. The next time Sarah sees David three weeks later, watching him approach across the market, she knows instantly and with a certainty she’s never had before: David is dying. He’ll be dead in less than three months’ time from a rare and swiftly moving cancer. What follows is Perry’s intimate account of sitting at David’s be