The dead beat
Subtitle: lost souls, lucky stiffs, and the perverse pleasures of obituaries
By: Marilyn Johnson
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9780060758752
Subjects: Obituaries; History and criticism
Description: Obituaries are history as it is happening. Whose time am I living in? Was he a success or a failure, lucky or doomed, older than I am or younger? Did she know how to live? Where else can you celebrate the life of the pharmacist who moonlighted as a spy, the genius behind Sea Monkeys, the school lunch lady who spent her evenings as a ballroom hostess? No wonder so many readers skip the news and the sports and go directly to the obituary page. This book is the story of how these stories get told. Enthralled by the fascinating lives that were marching out of this world, Marilyn Johnson tumbled into the obits page to find out what made it so lively. She sought out the best obits in the English language and chased the people who spent their lives writing about the dead.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-239).
Table of contents: title: 1. I walk the dead beat; title: 2. A wake of obituarists; title: 3. Name that bit; title: 4. The mighty and the fallen of New York :; title: The Irish sports pages; title: The franchise; title: Portraits of grief; title: Goodbye!; title: Attention must be paid; title: 5. Now you know; title: 6. Ordinary Joe; title: 7. The egalitarians; title: 8. Tributes; title: 9. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse :; title: The obituary capital; title: Boiled in oil, and other; title: Terrible fates in the Daily Telegraph; title: A few words about the code; title: Following the Guardian into the mist; title: An Independent bent; title: Lives of the Times; title: 10. Googling death; title: 11. The obit writer's obit.