Before I Die
Before I Die is a debut novel by author Jenny Downham. And it’s amazing. It’s about 16-year-old Tessa, who has terminal leukemia, and makes a list of the things she wants to do before she dies. These things are not your average ’smell the roses, climb mount everest’ before-i-die wishes. Number one on Tessa’s list, is “I want to feel the weight of a boy on top of me”.
The book is heart-breaking, real and never sentimental. There is not a skerrick of schmultz. But even though you would be a hard-hearted soul to not finish the book in tears, there is something incredibly cathartic and life-affirming about it.
There’s a great review at Seven Impossible Things here, and an article from the Sunday Times here.
The book will be published in Australia next month.
Finally, here is what publisher David Fickling has to say about it:
Dear Readers
This press release is really a letter. I simply want to tell as many people as possible about Before I Die, a quite outstanding novel by debut writer Jenny Downham, which I have just acquired from Catherine Clarke at Felicity Bryan Agency. I need to take this step because we are, by modern standards, publishing Before I Die in record quick time and there is really no time for the usual word of mouth to gather momentum. I am relying on you!
I don’t want to say very much about the book at all except for three things.
Firstly, I urge everyone to read Before I Die. You will not be disappointed. It is both searing, unsentimentally honest and at the same time almost shockingly life-affirming. If anyone has got closer to imagining what it actually means to die (and so live!) then I have yet to read them.
Secondly, Jenny Downham is a formidable writing talent and Before I Die is stark, poetic, and both beautifully written and unstoppably readable.
Thirdly: Why are we publishing so quickly? Partly and very plainly because I don’t think the public should be kept waiting a single second longer than necessary to read this book. And partly to show that we can. Nowadays books sometimes have to wait an inordinately long time to get published. Often a book taken on by an editor is not published for one, two, three years… I have always revered the nimble publishing of legends of yore like Victor Gollancz who could receive a manuscript in August and have it in the shops by Christmas. A small, personal imprint like DFB can be nimble and quick, SHOULD be nimble and quick.
Especially with literary gold dust in its hands.
Yours sincerely
David Fickling
PS But don’t just take my word for it. Rights have already been sold in no less than TEN languages, in less than two weeks.
