All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work
A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there.
We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?
Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.
Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she asks: Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.
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Community Reviews
Hayley Campbell, a UK journalist, spent three years traveling across the UK and USA investigating various professionals in the death industry. This book covers a wide variety of the death industry, including many careers that you probably never thought about. Each chapter is about a different topic, including funeral directors, embalmers, , death mask creators, crime scene cleaners, executioners, bereavement wards, and cryonics.
This was a fascinating and heartfelt look at various aspects of the death industry that most people never consider. I have heard of a few of these, and read some books where it was briefly discussed, but for the most part, this book was filled with a lot of new information. Campbell did a great job at presenting the realities of these fields and how they impact the workers, and herself. As the book progresses, they provide their feelings on death and how these interviews changed them, including causing some trauma.
I learned a lot from this book about fields that I didn’t know anything about. The crime scene cleaners were a job I never considered but realized the importance of it. It was interesting learning about the company she shadowed, but I was very surprised by the owner's feelings towards the family members. Another field that I had never heard of before, because I am not sure it's an actual part of hospitals here in the USA, is bereavement wards and bereavement doulas. This was a very emotional chapter and honestly showcased how hard it is for women right now in the USA because we don’t have support and compassion around miscarriages, stillbirths, and child deaths.
The most interesting chapter for me though was the chapter on executioners and how it impacts them. I have never read any interviews from people who currently work on death row executing inmates, so I was very interested by this chapter. I will say, it was a bit disappointing that the person she interviewed viewed it all through a religious lens and used that to justify his actions. It makes me want to read more about the psychological effects this job has on people, but also the death penalty should be abolished.
Overall, this was a fascinating and informative look at various positions in the death industry and how it affects the people within it. I learned a lot and really loved the variety this book showcases. Also I appreciated the author’s inclusion of how these experiences shaped and influenced her.
TW: graphic depictions of death, including children; medical content, embalming, post mortems, miscarriage and stillbirths, grief, depression,
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