Each chapter is like a self-contained magazine piece with an excellent cast of characters. How perfect that there is a master embalmer working in Margate called Dr Gore! Each essay varies in tone and interest, but each provides shocking information, supported by kind, emotional sophistication. Campbell doesn’t have an axe to grind like, say, Jessica Mitford in The American Way of Death the classic exposé of corrupt funeral practices. She just wants us, as it were, to see the axe ... All these details feel exploitative now that I have pulled them from the body of the book, but in the whole they feel morally grounded ... The book’s tour de force is the chapter on the technicians who prepare bodies for autopsy at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. It is a superlative piece of writing, one of the best essays I have read in a long time; provocative, loving and profound ... To the essential jobs working in the death industry should be added: tour guide.
Ms. Campbell’s book is more than a written narrative, it is a map across uneven and untraveled land. Her story lingers the way a mortuary’s perfume sticks to the roof of your mouth. This is a book you will carry with you ... I have never read a book like this one. Ms. Campbell, a London-based journalist and author, answers questions I never thought to ask ... There are moments of grisly, if fascinating, reality...But with such images comes surprising tenderness as well; moments of hope, or longing, of life after the ruins ... despite the episodic nature of the text, there remains an indelible story here, a journey. The author changes along the way, and so do we ... It’s this raw, unguarded honesty that takes her book beyond many others of similar subject ... At times humorous and always informative, this humanity sets All the Living and the Dead apart.
Campbell’s genuine curiosity, careful reporting, and insightful commentary make for an engrossing read. Without sensationalizing or squeamishness, Campbell offers interviews rich in candid insights. One strong thread that emerges is the desire to be of service; another is deep, profound respect ... Readers who share Campbell’s healthy obsession will appreciate both her meticulous reporting and her marked compassion.
Campbell describes the mechanics of these jobs in comprehensive detail and with a measured levity that keeps the dour stench of death from overwhelming the pages ... The consistency in their answers may reflect a cultural uniformity that limits the book’s depth. All the characters live in Britain or the United States, an unaddressed Anglo-American centrism that is neither broad enough to reach globally universal truths about death nor focused enough to unearth revelations about any one specific community ... Also absent are communities whose relationships with death reveal urgent inequities, such as the funeral directors on Chicago’s South Side who organize memorials filled with teenagers mourning their gun-downed friends, or the crime scene photographers who have captured images of classroom massacres that remain absent from debates over gun control. The limited scope means there’s a missed opportunity to explore the wide-ranging social implications of death.
The 12 stories of death industry professionals outlined in this book are varied and richly wrought, and that enough is reason to read them ... Reading this book because the hidden world of death workers is fascinating is reason enough, but one may find in reading it, as I have, that attending to death deepens one’s understanding of its mystery and, by extension, the mystery of life.
... wide-ranging ... This sounds bizarre and even a little ghoulish, but the author’s quest reveals a wealth of surprising grace and impressive courage ... There are many touching moments and characters ... Campbell’s encounter with a bereavement midwife, who specializes in stillbirths and deliveries of babies who will soon pass away, is strikingly poignant, as is the author’s admission that she will be haunted by the image of a dead child. Some of her interviewees understand what she means, noting that the atmosphere of death can leak into your soul. Nevertheless, the author concluded her journey with a greater understanding of life and death. She suggests that we should be willing to be more involved in the passage of loved ones, both for our own closure and as a recognition of the importance of life—sound advice in a remarkable book ... A careful, moving investigation of existential matters told with a keen literary sense and memorable personal insights.
... gripping ... Though the morbid details won’t be for everyone, Campbell is a sharp and witty observer who successfully conveys her own fascination with the subject. This is a vivid and open-minded look at a taboo topic.
