Book of the Week — DELIRIOUS by Damien Wilkins

Featuring on many ‘best books’ lists around the motu, Damien Wilkins’s Delirious is an outstanding book, variously described by reviewers as ‘a marvel’, ‘a masterpiece’, and ‘a beautifully powerful, wonderful novel’. Wilkins is a subtle and perceptive writer and a crafter of exquisite prose, and has deep empathy for the uncertainties and hidden strengths of his characters.

It’s time. Mary, an ex-cop, and her husband, a retired librarian, have decided to move into a retirement village. They aren’t falling apart, but they’re watching each other — Pete with his tachcychardia and bad hip, Mary with her ankle and knee. Selling their beloved house should be a clean break, but it’s as if the people they have lost keep returning to ask new things of them.
This is an emotionally powerful novel about families and ageing. Delirious dramatises the questions we will all face, if we’re lucky, or unlucky, enough. How to care for others? How to meet the new versions of ourselves who might arrive? How to cope? Delirious is also about the surprising ways second chances come around.

“A charged book. Delirious is an accurate and sympathetic study of change, age and growth. Set on the very edge of land, the novel is poised between rational assessment and the mysteries of the deep.” —David Herkt, NZ Listener
”A New Zealand novel of grace and humanity. How does Wilkins do it? These are flawed and immensely satisfying characters – you close your eyes at the faulty, circuitous routes they take. Delirious is a marvel of a book.” —Witi Ihimaera

Find out more:

• ‘Death cleaning’, ageing, and loss.

• Claire Mabey and Gabi Lardies converse at The Spinoff

• Damien Wilkins on RNZ

• Book of the Year at The Reading Room

• Death and Real Estate

• “Maybe she was just messing with me.”