All the Living and the Dead

Fuelled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers from the people who choose to make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, Campbell encounters funeral directors, embalmers, a man who dissects cadavers for anatomy students, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending 62 lives. She holds a brain at an autopsy, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, and goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective. Through Campbell's probing, reverent interviews with these people who see death every day, she pieces together the psychic jigsaw to ask: Why would someone choose a life of working with the dead? And what does dealing with death every day do to you? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, the book weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a brilliant look into the psychology of Western death.