All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life’s Work, by Hayley Campbell. St. Martin’s Press, 2022.

The author admits right in the introduction that she has been fascinated with death since she was a small child; her father was the artist who illustrated Alan Moore’s graphic novel about Jack the Ripper, so she was used to seeing pretty gruesome images. So it’s not a big surprise that she eventually decided to interview people who’s careers are dealing with the dead.

A journalist by trade, Campbell has experience doing interviews, so she visits a number of death workers at their places of work. Several let her have a ‘hands on’ experience; she holds a brain; watches a body being embalmed and then made up for viewing; visits a crime scene when it’s going to be cleaned up; visits a hospital unit where still born babies are warmed up and prettied up so they look like they are sleeping, so that their parents can hold them before they are taken away; visits a cemetery while the gravediggers prepare a grave for burial; sees a cryonic storage site; and more. She enquires why and how the people ended up in their jobs. She asks about how the public sees their services. She includes how these visits made her, personally, feel. She asks how their jobs make the workers feel; how does it feel to be a state executioner who has ended 62 lives? What about crime scene cleanup- how does the obvious violence that had occurred make them feel?

I found the book very interesting; some chapters more so than others, for instance I found the chapter about funeral direction less interesting than that about bodies donated to science (a surprisingly large number get rejected). If you’ve any interest in the subject of death and how it’s handled today (at least in the UK), read this book. Don’t worry; there are no illustrations.

   Living with Grief When Illness is Prolonged, edited by Kenneth Doka, Ph.D. & Joyce Davidson.    Hospice Foundation of America, 1997                            

This book is a collection of  papers about how a prolonged illness is slowly killing a person, and how that is different from a sudden death or one with a short illness. Prolonged illness means that the care giver is on call for a much longer time; this takes a huge toll on the caregiver both mentally and physically. On the one hand, a longer illness gives time for talking, finding out about the dying person’s life and opinions, and for understanding and forgiving. But the longer time needing care can bring on feelings of guilt in the dying person, fearing they are asking too much of their family.

It’s an interesting book, but because it’s written by several people, certain passages are much more user friendly than others. It goes over such things as anticipatory grief, ethical considerations, hospice care, and sections on AIDS, cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease. The final part consists of how long term disease effects children and teens, things the caregiver should do, and the use of rituals both before and after death. I’d give it five stars for useful information, but only 3 ½ stars for being reader friendly- many passages seem to be written for the professional hospice worker, mental health professional, or MD. So that leaves it with a 4 star rating.

 

Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries, by Greg Melville. Abrams Press, 2022

The title pretty much says it all. He gives the history of not just the cemeteries, but of the area in general, as well as who designed the graveyard and the people who are buried there. Each chapter of the book is about a different American cemetery, starting with colonial Jamestown and ending with Hollywood Forever, and then devoting chapters to cremation, green cemeteries, and the way that a person can stay “alive” indefinitely via computer files and the internet.

One thing that comes up repeatedly is how the American Way of Death (as Jessica Mitford named it a few decades ago) is a money making machine. The plot purchase, the coffin, the embalming, the services, the maintenance of the gravesite… it all adds up tremendously. And they don’t tell you that most of it isn’t necessary. You don’t need a mahogany and brass coffin that’s better made than many people’s furniture. You don’t need a concrete vault in most cases. Embalming isn’t required in most jurisdictions, unless the body is being held for over a certain amount of time. But it’s easy to lay a guilt trip on a grieving family- “It shows your respect for your father!” “Don’t you love your mother enough to buy the very best?”- and upsell them.

Another item that comes up several times is the utter disrespect for existing graves when the well to do or those in power (usually the same thing…) wanted to use the land for something else. The early white colonists rode roughshod over Native American graveyards, whether it was for building, their own graveyards, or for agriculture. The poor had their graveyards built over in more than one place. A graveyard for African-Americans in New York had Central Park built over it- the grave markers were moved, but the bodies weren’t.

The book is well written, presented as a travelogue; anywhere the author travels, he tries to call in at any graveyards in the area, especially well known ones. His family finds this rather tiresome, given that they don’t share his enthusiasm for cemeteries (Hollywood Forever was found more acceptable than most, but just barely). Anyone who likes to walk through graveyards will enjoy this book.