Sick to Death by Chris Bridges

Plenty of wordplay in the title of this novel. It starts with sickness and ends with death, but it also a phrase that encompasses conditions and situations that are not the best but are difficult to overcome. 

The sickness is really intriguing. A woman in her thirties has some kind of illness that makes her fatigued most of the time and sometimes she is lame, faints or has seizures. There are no physical indications as to what may cause this, which leaves many people thinking that she is feigning  illness or has psychological issues. One of these people is her cruel stepfather. Given her condition she relies on her family to support her and her daughter, so they all live together in a cramped council house in South London. When she meets an attractive and kind doctor there seems to be a way out for her. Unfortunately, there is a wife preventing that dream from being fulfilled.

She is strung along for a while until they can formulate a plan to give him his freedom from his marriage, thus freedom for the ill woman, Emma. Obviously, the dream is too perfect…

The book is presented in mainly two parts. In the first, it is about Emma’s life, how her sickness affects her and how it affects those around her. Attitudes vary, even within medical circles. This part is not tense as in conventional thrillers, but is very interesting and despite being slow with regards to the plot. It is narrated by the sick woman herself.

However, the next part is narrated by two other women as well: her stepsister and her lover’s wife. There is a lot of exposition while the new versions of the characters explain their viewpoint and history. Oddly, they all have similar self esteem, desire for freedom and autonomy, deviousness, vengeance and aggression that borders on farcical, and often I couldn’t decipher which character’s story I was reading.

The ending is too simple and unrealistic making an unsatisfying read. That is, until the epilogue…brilliant.