Reviews with content warning for Gore - All the Living and the Dead: A Personal Investigation Into the Death Trade

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All the Living and the Dead: A Personal Investigation Into the Death Trade by Hayley Campbell

26 reviews

idun_aurora's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

An insightful read, is how I would describe the experience. The chapter describing the author's meeting and interview with the bereavement midwife left me teary-eyed.

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nanners's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

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xangemthelibrarian's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

5.0

This was such an informative and thorough look at the death industry. I shudder to describe this part of our lives an "industry," but that's what it is. It's what I felt when my mother dragged me around to funeral homes to plan my dad's funeral.

I began to get curious about death and medicine when my dad was put on hospice. My mother begged me to not read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty because one chapter described the process of embalming. I read only that one chapter out of spite because I was an adult and she couldn't control what I decided to read. I'm still glad I did read that chapter.

I tell that story because if you're like me, knowing is what brings you comfort. Solving the mystery. Being able to understand the processes that happen behind the scenes. Death is one of the things that society deems taboo to be curious about. Which is so stupid because death is a part of every single life that will ever come to exist.

I'm so grateful for Campbell. I'm grateful for her attention to detail and her ability to talk about this "taboo" subject. I'm grateful for the way she talked about how encountering death over and over and over again changed her. Her journey to write this book impacted her in the same way that first responders and medical personnel are affected by the tragedies they face daily. And inexplicably, I felt closer to my dad while listening to this book.

Maybe someday I will have the courage to try to meet death the same way Hayley Campbell has in this book. Maybe this is the closest I will get until my body dies. But either way knowledge is power and solace in a person like me, who is terrified of the unknown more than anything else.

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

An in depth look into the death industry and the people who handle us after we're gone. Detailing every step of the process, and a few of the less traditional aspects, Campbell made it her mission to relay those who work in death are shown with compassion and understanding.

I adored this book. I personally got a little squeamish about the more medical details involved in the embalming and generally preparing a body for viewing. How the mouth is kept closed and the like. But as Campbell says in the afterward, she never assumed what the reader could and could not handle. She let us make that choice for ourselves. The discussions had about death, about care of the body, about the realities every person will one day face, were all compassionate and gave an understanding that I've never had in my life.

"The first dead body you see shouldn't be someone you love. You should first learn how to distinguish between death and loss." It's not an exact quote, but easily the most powerful statement the entire book makes. Because its not wrong. The entire book discusses the difference between the natural end of life, and the grief left behind by the loss of a loved one. She talks about how many people have had a hand in their loved ones after life care because they were first exposed to death outside their loss. Grave diggers who buried their mothers and have already dug their own future graves by way of family plots. Morticians who have bled their parents and pumped in chemicals to bring a false sense of life back to their body in preparation for the funeral. A death midwife who was prepared for a worst possible scenario when she faced a complication in pregnancy. All are able to cope, to a degree, with loss because they understand it as separate from death.

There are some statistics going around recently about why women are the preferred gender for care of a body after death (do not google why). But Campbell mentions a similar statistic but gives an explanation I wasn't expecting. More women are taking courses for this kind of care then men. Ever since the shift in mortuary care went from simply the person with the body to the person handling bereavement. As society becomes less deeply religious, there has been a shift away from the church and towards the people in the business. There is more care involved with a funeral by people. Campbell reasons it might be because of our natural connection with blood, and life, that could lead to a more natural inclination towards that field. Certainly an interesting conclusion.

This book is just beautiful. I honestly feel like I could write an entire breakdown of everything she discusses. From prison executions to cryo-freezing bodies for a possible future. Every topic she discusses is poignant and I had to take mini breaks between each chapter to think about what I had just learned, and the new approach I'd just been shown.

My parents are beginning to age, the knowledge that I have a finite time with them is more clear now than ever. This book might not be for everyone coping with death. But it couldn't hurt to check it out if you are.

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old_man_niemand's review against another edition

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emotional informative fast-paced

4.0

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