All the living and the dead

£8.99

Fuelled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers from the people who choose to make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, Campbell encounters funeral directors, embalmers, a man who dissects cadavers for anatomy students, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending 62 lives. She holds a brain at an autopsy, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, and goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective. Through Campbell’s probing, reverent interviews with these people who see death every day, she pieces together the psychic jigsaw to ask: Why would someone choose a life of working with the dead? And what does dealing with death every day do to you? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, the book weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a brilliant look into the psychology of Western death.

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SKU: 9781526601438 Category: Tags: ,

Description

‘A superlative piece of writing… provocative, loving and profound’ THE TIMES‘Without exaggeration, an awe-inspiring achievement’ NIGELLA LAWSON‘Moving, funny, and liable to unexpectedly cause me to tear up’ NEIL GAIMANAn Irish Times Book of the YearIn this profoundly moving and remarkable book, journalist Hayley Campbell explores society’s attitudes towards death, and the impact on those who work with it every day. ‘If the reason we’re outsourcing this burden is because it’s too much for us,’ she asks, ‘how do they deal with it?’ Would facing death directly make us fear it less?Inspired by her own childhood fascination with the subject, she meets embalmers and a former death row executioner, mass fatality investigators and a bereavement midwife. She talks to gravediggers who have already dug their own graves and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear. Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with people who see death every day, she asks: Does seeing death change you as a person? And are we all missing something vital by letting death remain hidden?‘Essential, compassionate, honest’ Audrey Niffenegger, author of THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE‘Never macabre… poignant… TransformativeFINANCIAL TIMES

Additional information

Dimensions 19.8 × 12.9 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

288

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

363.75 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K