A review by alekz
All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I wish i could give this more than 5 stars. This book is so profoundly meaningful. It straightfoward and honest and doesn't sugar coat, but it's anything but hopeless. Campbell shows us in every page of this book the love and humanity that is in death, that the death workers who care for us in death truly care. From the morticians to the gravediggers to the scientists receiving our bodies donated to them for science. The absolute beauty and connectivity of humanity is so palpable that it brought me to tears multiple times. Death is big and it is scary, but Campbell brings us gently to see it in new ways, but never pulls a curtain between us and the nitty gritty. And that is comforting, to hear exactly how we can be cared for after dying, or how our loved ones will be, or how we can grieve , and how we can anticipate loss logistically. I am so grateful for this book, for Campbells extraordinary efforts to experience and describe such traumatic interactions, for bringing death back down from myth.