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All the Living and the Dead
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Nonfiction (2022) 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.
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.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 12, 2022
About the author
Hayley Campbell
2 books253 followersHayley Campbell has written for BuzzFeed, WIRED, Empire, VICE/VICE Sports, New Statesman, McSweeney’s, The Comics Journal, The Guardian, GQ, Esquire, and the Observer Magazine. She is the author of The Art of Neil Gaiman—a fully authorized, lavishly illustrated biography of Gaiman and his work—and lives in Highgate, London, near the cemetery.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,567 reviews
December 5, 2022
Review Overall an interesting and good read. I was interested in the selection process for people who wanted to donate their body to science ie to medical students. Not everyone is accepted! Very fat people who can't fit on the narrow tables, people with missing organs, people who die of cancer and people with amputated limbs among others are all rejected. The reason:
I enjoyed reading most of the book except for mental issues the author had with a dead baby. The baby's corpse was being washed, quite tenderly, and when the mortuary attendant went to get a towel, it's face slipped under the water and the author got very anxious and wanted to rescue it from drowning. I think all of us would have had that reaction.
However, it stayed with the author, led her into a kind of depression where she couldn't even work, and right up to the end of the book writes quite frequently about how this dead baby slipping under the water affected her. It got a bit wearisome. I wasn't really into the continual repetition of the author's mental state.
Interesting was the special maternity unit for women who were going to deliver a dead baby or one who would die soon after birth. A quiet, calm place, where there were no screams of pain from women in unmedicated labour. There are cooling cots so that the baby can remain with the parents until they are ready to let the baby be buried. And midwives who dedicate themselves to delivering only dead babies in sadness, although they train to deliver in joy, one of the few medical procedures that is generally joyous. Special women, very compassionate and empathetic.
A digression. No one think it more praiseworthy to undergo anything else without help with pain, is this the biblical 'In pain you will bring forth children and to your husband you will turn and he will have authority over you,' since we have abandoned the latter half, or most of us have, why has the first part remained? Pity the Amish (who still abide by the second half as well) and Scientologists neither of whom are allowed any pain relief or to make the slightest noise during labour and birth. I wonder if they actually manage that?
This is the most joyous thing I read. 3 months after the terrible Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 in which 72 people died,
The role of the medical cadaver is to give the student a map of a body in working order.So later they will have a basis line to see
What an abnormality looks like, and Lara can show them the reality of a diagnosis: what telling someone they have cancer actually means, what cirrhosis of the liver looks like, what obesity means for your cramped organs.It is true that inside every fat person there is a thin one struggling to get out. Our rib cage, our pelvis, our bones never grow past adulthood. I must try and let my thin person out some time. Or since I am on a permanent diet (it was 10lb then Covid lockdown and now it's 20lb) try harder!
I enjoyed reading most of the book except for mental issues the author had with a dead baby. The baby's corpse was being washed, quite tenderly, and when the mortuary attendant went to get a towel, it's face slipped under the water and the author got very anxious and wanted to rescue it from drowning. I think all of us would have had that reaction.
However, it stayed with the author, led her into a kind of depression where she couldn't even work, and right up to the end of the book writes quite frequently about how this dead baby slipping under the water affected her. It got a bit wearisome. I wasn't really into the continual repetition of the author's mental state.
Interesting was the special maternity unit for women who were going to deliver a dead baby or one who would die soon after birth. A quiet, calm place, where there were no screams of pain from women in unmedicated labour. There are cooling cots so that the baby can remain with the parents until they are ready to let the baby be buried. And midwives who dedicate themselves to delivering only dead babies in sadness, although they train to deliver in joy, one of the few medical procedures that is generally joyous. Special women, very compassionate and empathetic.
A digression. No one think it more praiseworthy to undergo anything else without help with pain, is this the biblical 'In pain you will bring forth children and to your husband you will turn and he will have authority over you,' since we have abandoned the latter half, or most of us have, why has the first part remained? Pity the Amish (who still abide by the second half as well) and Scientologists neither of whom are allowed any pain relief or to make the slightest noise during labour and birth. I wonder if they actually manage that?
This is the most joyous thing I read. 3 months after the terrible Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 in which 72 people died,
Workers, still combing through the charred remains, found a fish tank in the blackened tower. Somehow, despite the lack of food, electricity to oxygenate their water, and the twenty-three dead fish floating belly up above them, seven fish still lived.
The family from the flat were contacted but were unable to house them in their current situation, so with their blessing, one of the Kenyon staff adopted the fish. They even managed to breed, resulting in the most unlikely thing to rise from the ashes of a burned building: a baby fish. They called it Phoenix.
There was only one section I didn't enjoy and ended up skimming, cryonics, freezing corpses in the hope of technology one day being able to revive them back into life. Other than that, the book was very enjoyable, well-written and the author's personality shone through, a very interesting and likeable person despite the OCD over the dead baby. 4 star in reality. But given 5 because it was such a good and often enlightening read.
__________
Reading notes Reading this as I like books on death - funeral directors, hospices, embalming, cremation (but I can't get the vision out of my head of fat people's avoirdupois turning into liquid oil and running down the middle of the drain in the crematorium. I can't remember which book that came from, probably Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory, that was pretty gruesome). I don't know why I like these books but they must be quite generally appealing as it's quite a big genre. Maybe it is to allay feelings of my own mortality or to reinforce them. But I'm with Woody Allen on this one, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
February 9, 2024
4.45⭐
Genre ~ non fiction
Publication date ~ August 16, 2022
Est page Count ~ 269
Audio length ~ 8 hours 57 minutes
Narrator ~ the author
TW ~ death of a baby
I have read many books revolving around fictional death, but never one about the people that work closely with death. Some professionals that Hayley interviews are morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, and executioners.
I found this to be well researched, somewhat graphic and eye opening. I must admit I never really thought about who is behind the scenes cleaning up crime scenes, performing autopsies and those getting bodies ready for funeral viewings, as well as gravediggers. It was, also, interesting to me that executions are listed as homicides on the death certificate ~ I mean it makes sense and I don't know what I thought it would be, well actually I never really thought about it. But then is the executioner considered the murderer?
Non-fiction is not my usual genre, but I like to expand my horizons once in a while and I am glad I chose this book to do so. It's very well written and fascinating. I really liked that she took a hands on approach during some of the interviews.
Narration notes:
She made it sound just like she wrote the words herself 😂
*Thanks to Macmillan Audio, Hayley Campbell and NetGalley for the advance audiobook. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*
Connect with me ➡ Blog ~ Facebook ~ Twitter
Genre ~ non fiction
Publication date ~ August 16, 2022
Est page Count ~ 269
Audio length ~ 8 hours 57 minutes
Narrator ~ the author
TW ~ death of a baby
I have read many books revolving around fictional death, but never one about the people that work closely with death. Some professionals that Hayley interviews are morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, and executioners.
I found this to be well researched, somewhat graphic and eye opening. I must admit I never really thought about who is behind the scenes cleaning up crime scenes, performing autopsies and those getting bodies ready for funeral viewings, as well as gravediggers. It was, also, interesting to me that executions are listed as homicides on the death certificate ~ I mean it makes sense and I don't know what I thought it would be, well actually I never really thought about it. But then is the executioner considered the murderer?
Non-fiction is not my usual genre, but I like to expand my horizons once in a while and I am glad I chose this book to do so. It's very well written and fascinating. I really liked that she took a hands on approach during some of the interviews.
Narration notes:
She made it sound just like she wrote the words herself 😂
*Thanks to Macmillan Audio, Hayley Campbell and NetGalley for the advance audiobook. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*
Connect with me ➡ Blog ~ Facebook ~ Twitter
September 26, 2022
Since I woke up an hour and half ago, around 9,486 people around the world have died. 151,776 die every day, about 55.4 million people a year. (If you've just woken up and are trying to enjoy your morning coffee when you read this review, I'm sorry to get your day started on such a bleak note.)
Except when someone we know, or as in the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II with near constant news coverage of someone famous, dies most of us go about our lives oblivious to the fact that there is dying all around.
Not many people like to think about death because we are reminded that one day we too will perish and our molecules will be recycled into forming other things, both living and inanimate.
Author and journalist Hayley Campbell is not one who runs from death. For this book, she interviewed many people who work with the dead. These include: Embalmers, cremators, anatomical pathology technologists (yeh, I hadn't heard of them before either), grave diggers, executioners (countries like the US still have the barbaric death penalty, though most modern democracies have abolished it), and even a man who makes death masks.
It was interesting getting to know the people who do the jobs most of us would be unable or unwilling to do. I enjoyed (ok, maybe enjoyed isn't exactly the right verb.... appreciated perhaps?) learning about the processes performed in: preparing bodies for burial, discovering the cause of death, and using bodies to further scientific knowledge.
Here's a tidbit of things I learned:
∙During a cremation, cancer is the last thing to burn, even sometimes remaining along with the bones.
∙Exploded brains dry like cement, all but impossible to clean.
∙Some birthmarks run "through the layers of flesh and bone like a stick of rock." For instance, there was a man with a facial birthmark. When the thick membrane that protects the brain was pulled back, there was a dark mark on it where the outer birthmark was.
∙The bricks in a crematorium need "to be 862 degrees Celsius so the body will incinerate, not cook".
Such fun things to learn, aren't they?
The only part that really grossed me out was when the author wrote about watching the anatomical pathology technologist perform an autopsy. She describes in detail how "the tongue and oesophagus, with vocal cords, came out in one piece. It looked like a long fillet of pork."
And also, "She scoops the loose pieces of shit from around the rectum, inside the cavity, and places them on the table next to his leg to deal with later."
If you're trying to have breakfast along with your morning coffee -- I'm sorry!
So anyway, if you're not too squeamish and aren't the sort to shy away from things dealing with death, you might find this book interesting as well.
Those who enjoyed Caitlin Doughty's books and Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers are likely to enjoy this one as well. It'll give you a whole new appreciation for those who make death their life's work.
Except when someone we know, or as in the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II with near constant news coverage of someone famous, dies most of us go about our lives oblivious to the fact that there is dying all around.
Not many people like to think about death because we are reminded that one day we too will perish and our molecules will be recycled into forming other things, both living and inanimate.
Author and journalist Hayley Campbell is not one who runs from death. For this book, she interviewed many people who work with the dead. These include: Embalmers, cremators, anatomical pathology technologists (yeh, I hadn't heard of them before either), grave diggers, executioners (countries like the US still have the barbaric death penalty, though most modern democracies have abolished it), and even a man who makes death masks.
It was interesting getting to know the people who do the jobs most of us would be unable or unwilling to do. I enjoyed (ok, maybe enjoyed isn't exactly the right verb.... appreciated perhaps?) learning about the processes performed in: preparing bodies for burial, discovering the cause of death, and using bodies to further scientific knowledge.
Here's a tidbit of things I learned:
∙During a cremation, cancer is the last thing to burn, even sometimes remaining along with the bones.
∙Exploded brains dry like cement, all but impossible to clean.
∙Some birthmarks run "through the layers of flesh and bone like a stick of rock." For instance, there was a man with a facial birthmark. When the thick membrane that protects the brain was pulled back, there was a dark mark on it where the outer birthmark was.
∙The bricks in a crematorium need "to be 862 degrees Celsius so the body will incinerate, not cook".
Such fun things to learn, aren't they?
The only part that really grossed me out was when the author wrote about watching the anatomical pathology technologist perform an autopsy. She describes in detail how "the tongue and oesophagus, with vocal cords, came out in one piece. It looked like a long fillet of pork."
And also, "She scoops the loose pieces of shit from around the rectum, inside the cavity, and places them on the table next to his leg to deal with later."
If you're trying to have breakfast along with your morning coffee -- I'm sorry!
So anyway, if you're not too squeamish and aren't the sort to shy away from things dealing with death, you might find this book interesting as well.
Those who enjoyed Caitlin Doughty's books and Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers are likely to enjoy this one as well. It'll give you a whole new appreciation for those who make death their life's work.
May 7, 2023
I genuinely think that All The Living And The Dead might be one of the most important and engaging non fiction books I have ever read. I highlighted so many parts of it! An instant new addition to my “favourites” shelf.
Hayley Campbell is a journalist who, like myself, is interested in the subject of death. The very notion of wanting to find out what happens to the human body when we are no longer here. I went from a fear of death as a child straight into an interest, a morbid curiosity some might say. But I think it’s important for us to remember that it is a nature, inevitable process.
They say ”the first dead body you see should never be a person you love”, but unluckily for most of us it will be of a family member/loved one.
Hayley interviews executioners on death row, morticians, embalmers, bereavement midwifes… all people who come face to face with death most days of their lives. Seeing the dead body of a baby has a profound effect on Hayley. She feels almost traumatised by the experience, having some flashbacks and nightmares. But in a way she is glad she can empathises with the poor parents.
Hayley approaches this dark subject with care, kindness and respect. Which I think is really important. Overall, this is such an informative read and I would recommend it to anybody who may be curious. Of course some of the descriptions may be graphic but they are also educational. I feel like a book like this is helpful for me to process my own grief, throughout my 27 years of life I have lost many family members. I know how it feels to have death stare you in the face, an almost never ending reminder of our mortality.
”Life is meaningful because it ends; we are brief blips on a long timeline colliding with other people, other unlikely collections of atoms and energy that somehow existed at the same time we did.”
5 stars 💀🖤
Hayley Campbell is a journalist who, like myself, is interested in the subject of death. The very notion of wanting to find out what happens to the human body when we are no longer here. I went from a fear of death as a child straight into an interest, a morbid curiosity some might say. But I think it’s important for us to remember that it is a nature, inevitable process.
They say ”the first dead body you see should never be a person you love”, but unluckily for most of us it will be of a family member/loved one.
Hayley interviews executioners on death row, morticians, embalmers, bereavement midwifes… all people who come face to face with death most days of their lives. Seeing the dead body of a baby has a profound effect on Hayley. She feels almost traumatised by the experience, having some flashbacks and nightmares. But in a way she is glad she can empathises with the poor parents.
Hayley approaches this dark subject with care, kindness and respect. Which I think is really important. Overall, this is such an informative read and I would recommend it to anybody who may be curious. Of course some of the descriptions may be graphic but they are also educational. I feel like a book like this is helpful for me to process my own grief, throughout my 27 years of life I have lost many family members. I know how it feels to have death stare you in the face, an almost never ending reminder of our mortality.
”Life is meaningful because it ends; we are brief blips on a long timeline colliding with other people, other unlikely collections of atoms and energy that somehow existed at the same time we did.”
5 stars 💀🖤
September 28, 2022
I guess for some, diving into a book about death, could be considered macabre. It is, however, the one thing we all have in common. Death is the proverbial end goal. The author narrates her own book and she was terrific. She covers so much, from autopsies to medical examiner, from student dissections, to crime scenes. in a book with this subject there are disturbing items, one featuring a midwife and a baby that couldn't be saved. I think it's important to note that this wasn't just an intellectual exercise, she actually went to these places, talked to the people who make this their job and in many areas personally witnesses what they do. She was not unaffected by some of what she saw, one in particular rocked her emotionally and mentally. I was very interested in much of what she investigates, this was not done to shock but to inform.
In opinion, this book did just that.
In opinion, this book did just that.
April 16, 2022
Do not read any reviews. Just buy the book. It is a masterclass of journalism/non-fiction storytelling.
August 25, 2022
This book had the potential to be very interesting if the author didn't insert herself and her opinions into so much of it. She says that she has been fascinated by death since she was little, and this book feels like her own exploration of death and her emotions surrounding it, rather than a look into "the people who have made death their life's work." She obviously believes that death should be confronted in its most "real" state in order to bring people peace of mind, and this shows in every interview she does. She admires the funeral director who takes a more "natural" approach, and constantly questions the embalmer about the "violence" and necessity of the profession even existing. She doesn't leave much room for people to deal with death and grief in ways that differ from her or the possibility that truth can come from illusion, not just a rotting corpse. I also didn't need to hear about her emotions surrounding the topic, which also leaked into the interviews. She always focused on how these professionals handled their jobs emotionally, obviously because she was trying to face her own emotions. I would have preferred more actual details about their jobs, and what a typical day looks like for them than armchair grief psychology.
One other thing I would have liked to see was a more clear introduction that explained the professionals we would be learning about and how they were connected to each other and to the subject. I felt like I was flying blind through the book and never had a sense of where it was going.
One other thing I would have liked to see was a more clear introduction that explained the professionals we would be learning about and how they were connected to each other and to the subject. I felt like I was flying blind through the book and never had a sense of where it was going.
July 9, 2022
If you were ever curious about death and the people that work with the dead, All the Living and the Dead is a must read. It contains a behind the scenes look at the people whose vocations revolve around death on a daily basis. From funeral directors, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, grave diggers, and even cremators. There is something for everyone. But my personal favorites were the embalmer and the cremator. Totally gross, but extremely interesting.
All the Living and the Dead is not a book to read by the faint of heart as it does contain a number of gruesome details for each vocation. Author, Campbell had the distinct pleasure of not only interviewing the people involved, but also having a hands on experience with some of the interviewees. Campbell deftly describes the gory details and at the same time expertly manages to add a human element to an otherwise inhuman narrative.
Exceptionally and beautifully written. Five amazing stars.
I received a digital ARC from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.
All the Living and the Dead is not a book to read by the faint of heart as it does contain a number of gruesome details for each vocation. Author, Campbell had the distinct pleasure of not only interviewing the people involved, but also having a hands on experience with some of the interviewees. Campbell deftly describes the gory details and at the same time expertly manages to add a human element to an otherwise inhuman narrative.
Exceptionally and beautifully written. Five amazing stars.
I received a digital ARC from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.
June 18, 2022
Well, the author admits that she has--and has always had--an interest in death, particularly its more morbid effects. And while she takes on writing this book as a way of exploring that urge in herself, it also seems that she does it for the kicks. Even when she's slightly humbled by the care a funeral director takes with a body and has a long moment of parental care take hold when seeing a baby's autopsy, she never convinces the reader--this reader, anyway--that she's ever gotten over the desire to revel in death and to be thrilled by seeing dead bodies. Unlike similar books by Mary Roach or Caitlin Doughty, Campbell's fascination is self-centered and exploitative, making this an uncomfortable read. not because of content, but because of her handling of it.
June 25, 2022
A great book describing what happens when we die. The author is a journalist and her deeply personal story on discovering death makes the whole book.
“The first person you see dead should not be one you love.”
The first dead body I saw, I found in the cellar of missionary colleague of my parents, after following the trail of tiny red ants. I was four. The second was a man, dead by cancer, when a town bureaucrat insisted the lid
of the coffin be removed. The jaundiced faced and the smell of decay hit me at the same time. The bureaucrat retched. I didn’t. I’d been at his death bed, and he smelled before life had left his body. I was ten.
I’ve seen my dead grandparents and yes, indeed, been grateful that their dead bodies were not the first one I encountered.
“The first person you see dead should not be one you love.”
The first dead body I saw, I found in the cellar of missionary colleague of my parents, after following the trail of tiny red ants. I was four. The second was a man, dead by cancer, when a town bureaucrat insisted the lid
of the coffin be removed. The jaundiced faced and the smell of decay hit me at the same time. The bureaucrat retched. I didn’t. I’d been at his death bed, and he smelled before life had left his body. I was ten.
I’ve seen my dead grandparents and yes, indeed, been grateful that their dead bodies were not the first one I encountered.
December 26, 2022
Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up
The Publisher Says: A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there.
We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?
Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.
Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she asks: Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: A book with a truly tragic genesis, the author losing a baby at birth; but it led her to look for her grief to be assuaged in discovering the connective tissue in our society's death industry. She made a terrible tragedy into a very interesting study and came away with the kind of book that many of us read with squeamishness as we're utterly disconnected from death.
No one doesn't think about death, and dying; and, as we've professionalized and medicalized every part of the process, we're going to the bookshelf for our answers. Luckily there are those among us who like learning things and then explaining them. (As long as they're not men, they're lauded for it.) Author Hayley Campbell did a major research project in this book's genesis. It comes across more in the endnotes...they're extensive. I realize I'm very much in the minority here, but I prefer endnotes with spiffy little superscript numbers that, in ebooks, function as hyperlinks; I'm perfectly willing to navigate away from the page when I want to know something's source. But la, the wishes and the wants of one not the author, or the editor, are mere wing-flappings of the tiniest of midges. (I'm waxing lyrical. Send help!) Encountering, for example, the saline hydrocremation process was something I wanted to know more about right then and there...but you can bet your sweet bippy I've bookmarked the UK WIRED Magazine story for future discovery.
A less delightful thing that somewhat tarnished my reading experience, and is the source of the missing half-star on the rating about, was the lived experience of her tragic loss of a baby. It was very, very present in the text. It is a loss second to none in the world for painful permanence. As such it felt, to be honest, overused as a rhetorical device. This is a subjective measure, and I freely acknowledge that a recently bereaved parent might find this inclusion unobtrusive, or positively helpful. I did not.
The other side of that coin, however, was my discovery that there are certain souls, who if there is a god deserve a total and complete remission from their sins, who specialize in bereavement midwifery. How very, very beautiful a soul those people must possess. How vast their reserves of kindness and empathy must be. And how deeply glad I am that they do this job.
Executioners, on the utterly other hand, aren't people I think should be employed. I have this wacky idea that killing people is wrong. Killing them as a profession is not one iota different in my own eyes to being a serial killer. And that, mes vieux, is that. (The executioner interview was interesting, I will admit, but changed my opinion not one jot.)
While I'm sure others might feel triggered at a frank discussion of the process of one's body's cessation of function, it fascinated me. It is a sad truth that most people in today's Western, privileged society have little or nothing to do with their dying fellow beings. They're the ones most in need of this book's honesty. I fear they won't pick it up and I truly advise you, should you be so unfortunate as to face your own mortality in an imminent way, to read and gift this fascinating story of what dealing with death truly entails.
I will always advocate for the "it's better to know than to wonder and fear" end of the information-reading spectrum. Author Hayley makes the process of educating yourself about the aftermath of dying as painless and as compelling as is, for example, one of the mysteries or thrillers that so many of us devour.
The Publisher Says: A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there.
We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?
Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.
Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she asks: Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: A book with a truly tragic genesis, the author losing a baby at birth; but it led her to look for her grief to be assuaged in discovering the connective tissue in our society's death industry. She made a terrible tragedy into a very interesting study and came away with the kind of book that many of us read with squeamishness as we're utterly disconnected from death.
No one doesn't think about death, and dying; and, as we've professionalized and medicalized every part of the process, we're going to the bookshelf for our answers. Luckily there are those among us who like learning things and then explaining them. (As long as they're not men, they're lauded for it.) Author Hayley Campbell did a major research project in this book's genesis. It comes across more in the endnotes...they're extensive. I realize I'm very much in the minority here, but I prefer endnotes with spiffy little superscript numbers that, in ebooks, function as hyperlinks; I'm perfectly willing to navigate away from the page when I want to know something's source. But la, the wishes and the wants of one not the author, or the editor, are mere wing-flappings of the tiniest of midges. (I'm waxing lyrical. Send help!) Encountering, for example, the saline hydrocremation process was something I wanted to know more about right then and there...but you can bet your sweet bippy I've bookmarked the UK WIRED Magazine story for future discovery.
A less delightful thing that somewhat tarnished my reading experience, and is the source of the missing half-star on the rating about, was the lived experience of her tragic loss of a baby. It was very, very present in the text. It is a loss second to none in the world for painful permanence. As such it felt, to be honest, overused as a rhetorical device. This is a subjective measure, and I freely acknowledge that a recently bereaved parent might find this inclusion unobtrusive, or positively helpful. I did not.
The other side of that coin, however, was my discovery that there are certain souls, who if there is a god deserve a total and complete remission from their sins, who specialize in bereavement midwifery. How very, very beautiful a soul those people must possess. How vast their reserves of kindness and empathy must be. And how deeply glad I am that they do this job.
Executioners, on the utterly other hand, aren't people I think should be employed. I have this wacky idea that killing people is wrong. Killing them as a profession is not one iota different in my own eyes to being a serial killer. And that, mes vieux, is that. (The executioner interview was interesting, I will admit, but changed my opinion not one jot.)
While I'm sure others might feel triggered at a frank discussion of the process of one's body's cessation of function, it fascinated me. It is a sad truth that most people in today's Western, privileged society have little or nothing to do with their dying fellow beings. They're the ones most in need of this book's honesty. I fear they won't pick it up and I truly advise you, should you be so unfortunate as to face your own mortality in an imminent way, to read and gift this fascinating story of what dealing with death truly entails.
I will always advocate for the "it's better to know than to wonder and fear" end of the information-reading spectrum. Author Hayley makes the process of educating yourself about the aftermath of dying as painless and as compelling as is, for example, one of the mysteries or thrillers that so many of us devour.
April 2, 2024
Though we may shun the inevitable, the same fate awaits us all, death. For many, this is an archaic alarm clock loudly beeping to remind us to cherish people in our life before the light has extinguished itself in a place where laughter is promptly replaced by rental medical equipment, garments that crackle under clothes and privacy is long gone.
“I had wanted to see what death looked like, and Adam looked dead. Unembalmed, naturally dead. He has been in these refrigerators for two and a half weeks and it showed…mouth half open like his eyes clutching a daffodil and photograph.”
—Hayley Campbell
We think we have years, actually like a beating heart time all things have a shelf life. Observing neighbors leaving us ever so slowly as falls, cardiovascular events and the influx of walkers and immobility brings new sounds to the asphalt. Women —like sentinels—stand long after Mr. left feet first when a thing called stroke paid a brief visit.
“I had wanted to see what death looked like, and Adam looked dead. Unembalmed, naturally dead. He has been in these refrigerators for two and a half weeks and it showed…mouth half open like his eyes clutching a daffodil and photograph.”
—Hayley Campbell
We think we have years, actually like a beating heart time all things have a shelf life. Observing neighbors leaving us ever so slowly as falls, cardiovascular events and the influx of walkers and immobility brings new sounds to the asphalt. Women —like sentinels—stand long after Mr. left feet first when a thing called stroke paid a brief visit.
February 14, 2023
Definitely A Learning experience.
Fascinating. I learned so much. To me this book isn’t morbid at all. It is the reality of death and many people who spend their adult lives in the industry of the dying. It happens to all of us of course.
Fascinating. I learned so much. To me this book isn’t morbid at all. It is the reality of death and many people who spend their adult lives in the industry of the dying. It happens to all of us of course.
April 16, 2024
A fascinating look into the lives and careers of those that deal with death and dead bodies. It makes a great companion to Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
August 14, 2022
An intriguing, candid, and frequently poignant book that asks what the business of death can teach all of us in the midst of life. Readers will form a connection with Campbell's voice as intimate as her own relationship with mortality. Highly recommend.
May 16, 2022
All the Living and the Dead is an amazing book. As I get older, sign up for Medicare and begin to face my own mortality in a more serious way, I have looked for books to help with this process. There is not a lot out there, and I hesitated before requesting this book from Netgalley, but Hayley Campbell has written about death and the many different people associated with it so well that I found the book informative and beautiful.
The author wrote the book because she wondered how people who have made death their work manage it on a daily basis.
The book never struck me as macabre or sensationalizing death, but I thought it was written with a fine balance between empathy and clinically explained details. I highly recommend Hayley Campbell and this book as a compassionate and honest way to read about death, ease your fears, and face mortality.
The author wrote the book because she wondered how people who have made death their work manage it on a daily basis.
“If the reason we’re outsourcing this burden is because it’s too much for us, how do they deal with it?”Campbell interviews many different people associated with death - a funeral director, the director of anatomical services at Mayo Clinic, an embalmer, a crime scene cleaner, a death mask maker, an executioner, anatomic pathology technologist, bereavement midwife, gravediggers, crematorium operator, and even people at a cryonics institute. I learned that there are many more people involved with death than I ever thought, and with their varied viewpoints, I also learned that it's far more than just a job to many of them. The care and respect they feel and show in their work is evident, even if it's work that most people will never see and may not be appreciated. There are a few morbid details, but Campbell gets involved in some of these details, such as dressing a corpse, handling a brain during an autopsy, and raking remains from the crematorium. This helps to make them seem just a little less morbid.
The book never struck me as macabre or sensationalizing death, but I thought it was written with a fine balance between empathy and clinically explained details. I highly recommend Hayley Campbell and this book as a compassionate and honest way to read about death, ease your fears, and face mortality.
"The world is full of people telling you how to feel about death and dead bodies, and I don't want to be one of them - I don't want to tell you how to feel about anything, I only want you to think about it."Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.
October 19, 2022
An intriguing exploration of the many people that handle the dead, from mortuary to cremation and many options in between.
“The edge of death and dying is around everything like a warm halo of light.” ~ David Wojnarowicz
What strikes me the most is how gently and with reverence many of the deceased are cared for by professionals in these fields. I have read some accounts that dehumanize and ridicule those that are no longer among the living, and the author’s observations have not reflected those behaviors at all.
“The edge of death and dying is around everything like a warm halo of light.” ~ David Wojnarowicz
What strikes me the most is how gently and with reverence many of the deceased are cared for by professionals in these fields. I have read some accounts that dehumanize and ridicule those that are no longer among the living, and the author’s observations have not reflected those behaviors at all.
November 12, 2023
An easy 5 stars. One of my favourite books that I’ve read this year. So interesting and beautifully written and I learnt SO much as well. Can’t wait to read more from this author.
February 10, 2023
This book is worth reading.
The author began this book as a look at the people who work behind the scenes to care for the dead, and to help the living who are grieving them. She even admits that at the onset of writing this book she thought that it would be a straightforward process as she followed the body from death to burial or cremation. It turned out to be a work of much greater scope.
I have read books before that talk about funeral directors, embalmers, and people who preform cremations. While these books were interesting and informative they lacked something that I was looking for. Before I read this book I was not even sure what it was I was looking for. Haley Campbell’s book,”All the Living and the Dead,” showed me that what I was looking for was a book that made the connection BETWEEN the living and the dead.
I absolutely know you need me to explain this.
Campbell wrote about amazing characters. Truly fascinating (in good and bad ways) people who run funeral homes, embalm (and sometimes not) bodies, make death masks, do all the dirty work before a body gets to the ME, work as bereavement midwives, work with the bodies of the people who leave their bodies to science, to those who clean up after crime scenes, a global company who deals in all aspects of mass fatalities, cryogenic freezing, and a homicide detective, among others. These stories were fascinating not only because of the detail and depth ~ but for the connection Campbell made between the living human person doing the “death work” and WHY they felt they were doing it. What purpose did they feel they were serving? Were they afraid of their own death?
I am not sure of what to say except that Campbell did something extraordinary. She helped make the connections to why we feel the need to look away from death ~ and also to stare at it. This book was full of humanity.
This book has some very painful (even brutal) imagery. I am sure that this book is not for everyone. I do think that if you are drawn to books like this because you are dealing with personal events and imagery of death that remain problematic ~ this book will help you.
The author began this book as a look at the people who work behind the scenes to care for the dead, and to help the living who are grieving them. She even admits that at the onset of writing this book she thought that it would be a straightforward process as she followed the body from death to burial or cremation. It turned out to be a work of much greater scope.
I have read books before that talk about funeral directors, embalmers, and people who preform cremations. While these books were interesting and informative they lacked something that I was looking for. Before I read this book I was not even sure what it was I was looking for. Haley Campbell’s book,”All the Living and the Dead,” showed me that what I was looking for was a book that made the connection BETWEEN the living and the dead.
I absolutely know you need me to explain this.
Campbell wrote about amazing characters. Truly fascinating (in good and bad ways) people who run funeral homes, embalm (and sometimes not) bodies, make death masks, do all the dirty work before a body gets to the ME, work as bereavement midwives, work with the bodies of the people who leave their bodies to science, to those who clean up after crime scenes, a global company who deals in all aspects of mass fatalities, cryogenic freezing, and a homicide detective, among others. These stories were fascinating not only because of the detail and depth ~ but for the connection Campbell made between the living human person doing the “death work” and WHY they felt they were doing it. What purpose did they feel they were serving? Were they afraid of their own death?
I am not sure of what to say except that Campbell did something extraordinary. She helped make the connections to why we feel the need to look away from death ~ and also to stare at it. This book was full of humanity.
This book has some very painful (even brutal) imagery. I am sure that this book is not for everyone. I do think that if you are drawn to books like this because you are dealing with personal events and imagery of death that remain problematic ~ this book will help you.
January 2, 2023
"Death is everywhere, but it's veiled, or it's fiction. Just like in the video games, the bodies disappear." Reading this sentence in the introduction reminded me of the reports of deaths earlier on during the never-ending pandemic of Covid. We would hear on the news of many deaths but as we survived in our 'pods' it didn't seem real. We were removed from the action so to speak. Where was the evidence of so many deaths?
Many of us were confined to the personal space of our homes, we lived, ate and even worked in our homes shielded from the unpleasantness of illness and death. Some people went through the agony of not being able to be near loved ones in hospitals or adult living facilities due to fear of infection and when someone we knew died, we were likely to only experience the funeral on Zoom from a distance.
A surprising fact I learned through reading this book: "After a violent death, there is no US government agency that comes to clean up the blood." I hadn't realized that the homeowner is responsible for either cleaning up themselves or employing a professional crime scene cleaner.
I have always wondered about the toll of the role of executioner. The author interviews an executioner who explains that the person on death row for several years is already gone. "They're ready to accept whatever and get it over with." What's left behind are the staff that complete the execution.
"They've got to carry on his death. His death lives through them until they die. It's going to be part of them, and eventually they will break." What follows is the description of how many executioners have committed suicide due to the heavy burden of taking someone else's life.
Another interesting fact to consider is that "nobody sees the whole of death, even if death is their job." Different people from various facets of the death industry complete the separate steps. "Nobody collects the dead body from the roadside, autopsies it, embalms it, dresses it and pushes it into the fire." Each person completes the task within their specific area and then passes the body to the person who carries out the next stage of the process.
Overall, this was a well-researched and thought provoking read.
Many of us were confined to the personal space of our homes, we lived, ate and even worked in our homes shielded from the unpleasantness of illness and death. Some people went through the agony of not being able to be near loved ones in hospitals or adult living facilities due to fear of infection and when someone we knew died, we were likely to only experience the funeral on Zoom from a distance.
A surprising fact I learned through reading this book: "After a violent death, there is no US government agency that comes to clean up the blood." I hadn't realized that the homeowner is responsible for either cleaning up themselves or employing a professional crime scene cleaner.
I have always wondered about the toll of the role of executioner. The author interviews an executioner who explains that the person on death row for several years is already gone. "They're ready to accept whatever and get it over with." What's left behind are the staff that complete the execution.
"They've got to carry on his death. His death lives through them until they die. It's going to be part of them, and eventually they will break." What follows is the description of how many executioners have committed suicide due to the heavy burden of taking someone else's life.
Another interesting fact to consider is that "nobody sees the whole of death, even if death is their job." Different people from various facets of the death industry complete the separate steps. "Nobody collects the dead body from the roadside, autopsies it, embalms it, dresses it and pushes it into the fire." Each person completes the task within their specific area and then passes the body to the person who carries out the next stage of the process.
Overall, this was a well-researched and thought provoking read.
April 26, 2023
Death is an interesting topic and one we will all eventually come to know first hand. It's a taboo topic in some circles, and too painful to discuss in others but like Hayley Campbell, it's always been of interest to me. As a kid, I remember a photograph I saw in a book of an adult who had died in their armchair as a result of spontaneous combustion. The idea that a body could catch fire or burst into flames at any moment was a frightening discovery and probably the first time I'd seen a photo of a dead body.
In our everyday lives, we're regularly shielded from death and that's something Hayley Campbell wants to change. In an attempt to understand how workers in the death industry cope with the demands of their job and why they chose their vocation in the first place, Hayley Campbell met a range of interviewees in order to produce All the Living and the Dead: A Personal Investigation Into the Death Trade.
In her book, Campbell interviews a funeral director, director of anatomical services, death mask sculptor, disaster victim identification, crime scene cleaner, executioner, embalmer, anatomical pathology technologist, bereavement midwife, gravedigger, crematorium operator and an employee from the Cryonics Institute. The variety of people and jobs was well rounded and each employee provided a new aspect to consider.
"I have met funeral directors who tell me they could not handle the gore of an autopsy, a crematorium worker who could not dress a dead man because it is too personal, and a gravedigger who can stand neck-deep in his own grave in the day but is scared of the cemetery at night. I have met APTs in the autopsy room who can weigh a human heart but will not read the suicide note in the coroner's report. We all have our blinkers on, but what we block out is personal to us." Page 230
In her research, Campbell accompanied staff on their duties and began to experience moments that would stick with her for the rest of her life. While trying to understand how staff manage to cope with the trauma that comes along with their chosen careers, the author found herself accumulating instances that would later qualify as giving her PTSD. As she discusses the most disturbing account of her time - - Campbell realises that she has immersed herself so deep into the research that she is now processing the kind of trauma that regular staff in the industry have to deal with.
After reading the chapter about the crime scene cleaner, I was tempted to suss out his instagram profile after Campbell's descriptions of his posts there. I quickly fell into a deep dark social media hole for 20 mins until my levels of fear, disgust, repulsion, sorrow, compassion, sympathy and frustration at much of the needless carnage were depleted. I definitely don't recommend it and yet it confirmed I'm unsuitable for that job.
Just as Campbell felt weighed down by what she learned and experienced, I too began to feel heavy and had to set this book down for a few weeks before returning to it. The overuse of hyphens throughout the writing also slowed me down a little.
On a lighter note, there was much to inspire the reader, and when I returned to the book I enjoyed this passage in particular:
"Thinking about death and the passage of time is part of tending a garden. You put things in the ground knowing they might fail. You grow things knowing they will die with the frosts six months from now. An acceptance of an end and a celebration of a short, beautiful life is all tucked up in this one at. People say gardening is therapeutic, that putting your hands in soil and effecting change on the world makes you feel alive and present, like something you do matters even if it's only in this one terracotta pot. But the therapy runs deeper than physicality: from the start of spring, every month is a countdown to an end. Every year, the gardener accepts, plans for and even celebrates death in the crisping seed heads that sparkle with ice in winter: a visible reminder of both an end and a beginning." Page 237
I enjoyed All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell, however most telling were probably the number of books from the further reading section that I’ve read on this subject over the years:
- Necropolis: London and Its Dead by Catharine Arnold
- Not Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, but I have read Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty
- Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry
- Stiff by Mary Roach
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
In conclusion, I admire Hayley Campbell's courage to shine a light on the often unknown world of death workers and the death industry. It's not until we face a natural disaster ourselves that we'd ever learn of the existence of Kenyon, or undergo problems with a pregnancy to be introduced to a bereavement midwife. I think it's important to better understand and appreciate the death workers within our community and thank them for the very important work that they do.
* Copy courtesy of Bloomsbury *
(For recommendations on similar books about death and the death industry, and to find out what else I have on my TBR, check out my review on my blog. )
In our everyday lives, we're regularly shielded from death and that's something Hayley Campbell wants to change. In an attempt to understand how workers in the death industry cope with the demands of their job and why they chose their vocation in the first place, Hayley Campbell met a range of interviewees in order to produce All the Living and the Dead: A Personal Investigation Into the Death Trade.
In her book, Campbell interviews a funeral director, director of anatomical services, death mask sculptor, disaster victim identification, crime scene cleaner, executioner, embalmer, anatomical pathology technologist, bereavement midwife, gravedigger, crematorium operator and an employee from the Cryonics Institute. The variety of people and jobs was well rounded and each employee provided a new aspect to consider.
"I have met funeral directors who tell me they could not handle the gore of an autopsy, a crematorium worker who could not dress a dead man because it is too personal, and a gravedigger who can stand neck-deep in his own grave in the day but is scared of the cemetery at night. I have met APTs in the autopsy room who can weigh a human heart but will not read the suicide note in the coroner's report. We all have our blinkers on, but what we block out is personal to us." Page 230
In her research, Campbell accompanied staff on their duties and began to experience moments that would stick with her for the rest of her life. While trying to understand how staff manage to cope with the trauma that comes along with their chosen careers, the author found herself accumulating instances that would later qualify as giving her PTSD. As she discusses the most disturbing account of her time - - Campbell realises that she has immersed herself so deep into the research that she is now processing the kind of trauma that regular staff in the industry have to deal with.
After reading the chapter about the crime scene cleaner, I was tempted to suss out his instagram profile after Campbell's descriptions of his posts there. I quickly fell into a deep dark social media hole for 20 mins until my levels of fear, disgust, repulsion, sorrow, compassion, sympathy and frustration at much of the needless carnage were depleted. I definitely don't recommend it and yet it confirmed I'm unsuitable for that job.
Just as Campbell felt weighed down by what she learned and experienced, I too began to feel heavy and had to set this book down for a few weeks before returning to it. The overuse of hyphens throughout the writing also slowed me down a little.
On a lighter note, there was much to inspire the reader, and when I returned to the book I enjoyed this passage in particular:
"Thinking about death and the passage of time is part of tending a garden. You put things in the ground knowing they might fail. You grow things knowing they will die with the frosts six months from now. An acceptance of an end and a celebration of a short, beautiful life is all tucked up in this one at. People say gardening is therapeutic, that putting your hands in soil and effecting change on the world makes you feel alive and present, like something you do matters even if it's only in this one terracotta pot. But the therapy runs deeper than physicality: from the start of spring, every month is a countdown to an end. Every year, the gardener accepts, plans for and even celebrates death in the crisping seed heads that sparkle with ice in winter: a visible reminder of both an end and a beginning." Page 237
I enjoyed All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell, however most telling were probably the number of books from the further reading section that I’ve read on this subject over the years:
- Necropolis: London and Its Dead by Catharine Arnold
- Not Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, but I have read Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty
- Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry
- Stiff by Mary Roach
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
In conclusion, I admire Hayley Campbell's courage to shine a light on the often unknown world of death workers and the death industry. It's not until we face a natural disaster ourselves that we'd ever learn of the existence of Kenyon, or undergo problems with a pregnancy to be introduced to a bereavement midwife. I think it's important to better understand and appreciate the death workers within our community and thank them for the very important work that they do.
* Copy courtesy of Bloomsbury *
(For recommendations on similar books about death and the death industry, and to find out what else I have on my TBR, check out my review on my blog. )
December 14, 2022
Featuring interviews with death workers across a range of professions, this stands out from similar books by including jobs that don’t often get their due, like crime scene cleaner, gravedigger, and crematorium operator, and those that we might not know as much about, like death mask sculptor and disaster victim identification. Death workers deserve to be recognized. I really hope this will help normalize the work they do, as well as help prepare people who may someday have need of their services.
“How do you celebrate work that has essentially come from someone else’s pain?” - Lara-Rose Iredale, an Anatomical Pathology Technologist (page 169)
As a former hospice social worker, I felt a sense of kinship when I came across Iredale’s words. I was good at my work and believed strongly in its importance but I was always aware of what my presence meant for the patients and families I worked with. No one wants to need hospice, even the ones who didn’t think twice about signing up. Death is a part of life, a painful, inevitable part. Yet we as a society so often pretend as if it isn’t, to our great detriment.
Hayley Campbell experienced her first loss when she was a pre-teen but before she wrote this book, she’d never seen a dead body. The author developed a curiosity about death as a result, wanting to know what had been concealed from her and the impact that has on us. This blew my mind as I grew up attending wakes with open caskets. (I come from a large German Catholic family.) My relatives modeled what grief looked like and that helped me make sense of things in turn.
Because society has spent so many years turning away from death, Campbell is unflinching in forcing us to face it, whether detailing an autopsy or decomposing body. She also doesn’t hesitate to share how some of the things she witnessed tripped her up and what she needed in order to make sense of them. We’ve lost something profound by distancing ourselves from the reality of death and it’s cost us even more. Campbell notably pointed out how the removal from death (particularly by shielding the public from seeing the dead bodies) explains why it was easier for so many people to dismiss what was really happening with COVID-19.
As someone who used to work in end-of-life care, I have a lot of opinions about books centered around death and loss. I want everyone to have better understanding about this important topic and have high standards as a result. This is a really strong, well-written book but it could have been even stronger with a few changes. Two additional professions should have been profiled: a hospice nurse or CNA and someone who provides physician-assisted dying. I’m obviously biased toward the inclusion of hospice and palliative care but it’s a puzzling omission regardless. Hospice provides a unique form of support throughout the dying process and yet a lot of people have never heard of it or misunderstand what it means. As far as physician-assisted dying, it can be a dicey issue so I can understand why the author might not want to wade in those particular waters. At the same time, she chose to include the Cryonics Institute so it’s not as if she shied away anything that might raise eyebrows.
Each chapter centers on an interview with one person. Understandable due to space constraints but I couldn’t help but wish we’d gotten to hear from a couple of people doing the same job in different places. City vs. country, for example. Or those who have different views about the work they do, which would have been especially helpful in the executioner chapter. The author is from the UK and the people profiled are primarily from the UK, with a few from the US. Because the countries have different regulations and standards, it might have been better to concentrate on one country or the other. The contrast was particularly evident in the chapter at the crematorium.
For people who are less familiar with death workers, this should prove to be an eye-opening read. I’m grateful Campbell was allowed to run with her curiosity and ask the questions she did. I hope it leads to more introspection and reflection about our own end-of-life wishes, as well as those of our loved ones.
Content notes: suicide, stillbirths and miscarriages, cancer, AIDS epidemic, descriptions of corpses and autopsies (including baby), descriptions of mutilated and murdered bodies, mass casualties, war atrocities, mass graves (war), maternal mortality, death of loved ones, various causes of death, discussion of executions, death penalty, animal death, embalming, medical cadavers, COVID-19, alcohol, cigarettes, gender essentialism (including possible misgendering of deceased person), mention of police brutality, mention of serial killer
“How do you celebrate work that has essentially come from someone else’s pain?” - Lara-Rose Iredale, an Anatomical Pathology Technologist (page 169)
As a former hospice social worker, I felt a sense of kinship when I came across Iredale’s words. I was good at my work and believed strongly in its importance but I was always aware of what my presence meant for the patients and families I worked with. No one wants to need hospice, even the ones who didn’t think twice about signing up. Death is a part of life, a painful, inevitable part. Yet we as a society so often pretend as if it isn’t, to our great detriment.
Hayley Campbell experienced her first loss when she was a pre-teen but before she wrote this book, she’d never seen a dead body. The author developed a curiosity about death as a result, wanting to know what had been concealed from her and the impact that has on us. This blew my mind as I grew up attending wakes with open caskets. (I come from a large German Catholic family.) My relatives modeled what grief looked like and that helped me make sense of things in turn.
Because society has spent so many years turning away from death, Campbell is unflinching in forcing us to face it, whether detailing an autopsy or decomposing body. She also doesn’t hesitate to share how some of the things she witnessed tripped her up and what she needed in order to make sense of them. We’ve lost something profound by distancing ourselves from the reality of death and it’s cost us even more. Campbell notably pointed out how the removal from death (particularly by shielding the public from seeing the dead bodies) explains why it was easier for so many people to dismiss what was really happening with COVID-19.
As someone who used to work in end-of-life care, I have a lot of opinions about books centered around death and loss. I want everyone to have better understanding about this important topic and have high standards as a result. This is a really strong, well-written book but it could have been even stronger with a few changes. Two additional professions should have been profiled: a hospice nurse or CNA and someone who provides physician-assisted dying. I’m obviously biased toward the inclusion of hospice and palliative care but it’s a puzzling omission regardless. Hospice provides a unique form of support throughout the dying process and yet a lot of people have never heard of it or misunderstand what it means. As far as physician-assisted dying, it can be a dicey issue so I can understand why the author might not want to wade in those particular waters. At the same time, she chose to include the Cryonics Institute so it’s not as if she shied away anything that might raise eyebrows.
Each chapter centers on an interview with one person. Understandable due to space constraints but I couldn’t help but wish we’d gotten to hear from a couple of people doing the same job in different places. City vs. country, for example. Or those who have different views about the work they do, which would have been especially helpful in the executioner chapter. The author is from the UK and the people profiled are primarily from the UK, with a few from the US. Because the countries have different regulations and standards, it might have been better to concentrate on one country or the other. The contrast was particularly evident in the chapter at the crematorium.
For people who are less familiar with death workers, this should prove to be an eye-opening read. I’m grateful Campbell was allowed to run with her curiosity and ask the questions she did. I hope it leads to more introspection and reflection about our own end-of-life wishes, as well as those of our loved ones.
Content notes: suicide, stillbirths and miscarriages, cancer, AIDS epidemic, descriptions of corpses and autopsies (including baby), descriptions of mutilated and murdered bodies, mass casualties, war atrocities, mass graves (war), maternal mortality, death of loved ones, various causes of death, discussion of executions, death penalty, animal death, embalming, medical cadavers, COVID-19, alcohol, cigarettes, gender essentialism (including possible misgendering of deceased person), mention of police brutality, mention of serial killer
November 13, 2022
Like other reviews, I agree that this book had so much potential, IF ONLY the author would have left her chapters to be the subjects of her interviews stories. I found that based on the professionals she interviewed and all the experiences they brought to the table gave this book a 2.5 star review, HOWEVER I was under impressed time and time again with how often the author interrupted the thoughts / interview flow for her own opinion. What sticks out most poignantly to me is the death row executioner who she interviewed and had made his own sort of peace with his profession and the fact that the author could not just let that go and accept what he believed at face value.
I just prefer my nonfiction type books (like this one) to be more factual / to the point then peppered with constant opinion from the author.
I just prefer my nonfiction type books (like this one) to be more factual / to the point then peppered with constant opinion from the author.
January 10, 2023
It feels weird to say that a book about death is beautiful, but it really is. All the Living and the Dead is well-written, immersive, and heartbreaking - while also being tender and hopeful.
May 30, 2023
I got half way through and honestly gave up on. This topic is right up my alley, but it’s honestly just a badly written book. It’s incredibly dull, and it rolls off on tangents making the vast majority easily skippable, something which I don’t want from a book. The topics of each chapter were fascinating, and yet they were so awfully full to read about, probably because the author inserted her own boring perspectives into a factual discussion that had no place being there. She seemed to want to be the start of her own show when conducting an interview, and I didn’t want to hear from her: I wanted to learn more about the process, about the details and history of these jobs and of the people she interviewed. Potential just terribly wasted by bad writing and, dare I say, authorial ego?
January 7, 2024
This was picked for a group read or I probably would never have read it (listened to it). I'm a little freaked out by death and dead people, might even be in denial about it (Oh, I might say, we're not going to get sick and we're certainly not going to be dying for a very long time). This may have helped me face the grim reality a bit better, and for certain it taught me a thing or two. I won't say it was enjoyable exactly, but was interesting - fascinating in fact - and memorable. I liked a great deal of the quotes, and the author's narration felt very professional and polished.
November 25, 2022
All the Living and the Dead is by Hayley Campbell, a prolific writer and journalist from the UK who has written for numerous publications, including BuzzFeed, GQ, and the Guardian. This is her second book, following The Art of Neil Gaiman, which she published in 2014.
In a similar style to books by Caitlin Doughty, Campbell interviews and writes about a wide range of people who make their living working with the dying and the dead. Among those she speaks with are a retired executioner, a bereavement midwife, embalmers, and a man who cleans up messy scenes of death. As a social worker who deals with death, dying, and grief frequently professionally, and is interested in these topics personally, I enjoyed this book deeply. It brought an empathic and fascinating lens to the topic of death, which opened my understanding of what it means to live, to die, and to care for both the living and the dead.
** Thanks so much to NetGalley, Hayley Campbell, and St. Martin's Press for this ARC! All the Living and the Dead is out now! **
In a similar style to books by Caitlin Doughty, Campbell interviews and writes about a wide range of people who make their living working with the dying and the dead. Among those she speaks with are a retired executioner, a bereavement midwife, embalmers, and a man who cleans up messy scenes of death. As a social worker who deals with death, dying, and grief frequently professionally, and is interested in these topics personally, I enjoyed this book deeply. It brought an empathic and fascinating lens to the topic of death, which opened my understanding of what it means to live, to die, and to care for both the living and the dead.
** Thanks so much to NetGalley, Hayley Campbell, and St. Martin's Press for this ARC! All the Living and the Dead is out now! **
August 25, 2022
Great work of nonfiction exploring the concept of death. It ranges from embalmers, funeral directors, crime scene cleaners, executioners, and even murderers. Campbell meets with professionals within these fields and we get an insight in how it works and how they feel about it, how they got into it, etc. Really interesting and insightful as well. I thought this would be a little triggering for me as I did lose a friend earlier this year however, it was done in a way where I didn’t feel triggered. It’s done in a compassionate way which I really respect.
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book!
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book!
February 1, 2024
4 stars
This book is not about death and dying - although it deals with both, due to it's true objective. This book is about the people who deal with death everyday. The people who keep the industry of death working on a daily basis. What their occupation deals with, what they see and how they feel.
From the nurse, to the funeral director, to the grave digger - all that are directly involved with the death of a person. Not forgetting the ambulance driver, the pastor, the crime scene cleaner, the obituary writer, the executioner, to those doing the autopsy or working in the bowels of the crematory. All play their part in the continuing story of a person's death.
Campbell submersed herself in a number of the death occupations to know the true calling of each. Not only the work involved, but the feeling of the workers, why they chose their profession and how they live day by day with what they see. In doing so, her objective was to bring death to a more acceptable level - helping people to understand the process and humanity involved. Overall this was a good representation of those who work daily with the dying or dead - they may not understand death any more than the lay person - but at least the process surrounding death is more easily understood.
This book is not about death and dying - although it deals with both, due to it's true objective. This book is about the people who deal with death everyday. The people who keep the industry of death working on a daily basis. What their occupation deals with, what they see and how they feel.
From the nurse, to the funeral director, to the grave digger - all that are directly involved with the death of a person. Not forgetting the ambulance driver, the pastor, the crime scene cleaner, the obituary writer, the executioner, to those doing the autopsy or working in the bowels of the crematory. All play their part in the continuing story of a person's death.
Campbell submersed herself in a number of the death occupations to know the true calling of each. Not only the work involved, but the feeling of the workers, why they chose their profession and how they live day by day with what they see. In doing so, her objective was to bring death to a more acceptable level - helping people to understand the process and humanity involved. Overall this was a good representation of those who work daily with the dying or dead - they may not understand death any more than the lay person - but at least the process surrounding death is more easily understood.
January 18, 2023
somber but timely and very educational.
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