Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Popular Genres

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

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

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

Hayley Campbell
0/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
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.

Listening Length: 10 hours and 30 minutes.
Language
English
Pages
9
Format
Audible Audio
Release
April 12, 2022

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

Hayley Campbell
0/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
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.

Listening Length: 10 hours and 30 minutes.
Language
English
Pages
9
Format
Audible Audio
Release
April 12, 2022

More books from Hayley Campbell

The Art of Neil Gaiman

4.2/5 ( ratings)

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

4.5/5 ( ratings)

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

4.5/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?

loader