Death: The Time of Your Life

Death: The Time of Your Life (1997) Neil Gaiman

This may be one of favorite Neil Gaiman graphic novels.

Foxglove is on tour and Hazel is home with Alvie, the child she was pregnant with in The High Cost of Living. Foxglove is falling apart at the seems, and Hazel has made a deal whose time is up.

And I really, really like Larry.

At it’s very essence, this is a love story about Foxglove and Hazel. Except of course that it’s more than that. Because it’s also the story of parents’ love for their child, and the sacrifices that friends are willing to make for each other.

Death is here, only she’s far more passive, mostly listening to Hazel, and to Foxglove. And I think, somehow, that I prefer her this way to how she is in The High Cost of Living. Maybe it’s the way that she listens. It makes me wish that I could really listen like that, instead of the distracted listening that I often do. Because there is something about listening that is a gift, but it’s not a gift that a lot of people have.

I do wish I had the cover you see here. Not that I don’t like Dave McKean’s work, but there’s something about Death as she is drawn that I find utterly appealing, and this cover just isn’t quite the same.
Rating: 9/10

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