All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work

ISBN: 9781250281845
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Overview

A compelling and compassionate exploration of the death industry and the people--embalmers, detectives, crime scene cleaners, executioners--who work in it and what led them there.

Embarking on a three-year trip across the US and the UK, journalist Hayley Campbell--inspired by her longtime fascination with death, thanks to a childhood surrounded by her father's Jack the Ripper cartoons--met with a variety of professionals in the death industry to see how they work.

Along the way, Campbell encountered funeral directors, embalmers, a man who dissects cadavers for anatomy students, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending 62 lives. She sat in a van with old gravediggers who have already dug their own graves. She raked out bones and ash with a man who works in a crematorium. She dressed a dead man for his coffin, held a brain at an autopsy, visited a cryonics facility in Michigan, and went for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective. Through Campbell's prodding, reverent interviews with these people who see death every day, Campbell pieces together the psychic jigsaw to ask: Why would someone choose a life of working with the dead? Does being so near to lifeless bodies alter your perspective? Does an antidote to the fear of death exist?

A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death. And in the vein of Caitlin Doughty and Mary Roach, Campbell sharply investigates her--and our--own fascinations and fears through her encounters with this series of extraordinary people.

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Author: Campbell, Hayley
  • ISBN: 9781250281845
  • Condition: Used
  • Number Of Pages: 288
  • Publication Year: 2022
Language: English

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