num_pages: 288
description: A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the peoplemorticians detectives crime scene cleaners embalmers executionerswho 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 were 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 Campbells incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day she 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.
language: English
title: All the Living and the Dead
publisher: St. Martin's Press