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Title: Short stories of the dead...
Review: Who could predict that the obituaries would become the most widely read portion of today's newspapers. Just as Mary Roach's "Stiff" explored what happens to your body after you're dead, Marilyn Johnson's "Dead Beat" opens our eyes to the written legacy that the obituarist leaves--essentially the short story of a life. There is an art to this, as revealed in some of the delightful excerpts in her book--the best obits don't just recite vital statistics, but rather spotlight the "specialness" (quirky habits, unusual talents, life-changing moments, etc) of the individual as gleaned from interviews with families and friends. I like the idea that the obit focuses the reader's attention on the life of one person, whether famous or not, and then demands an acknowledgement of the loss of that particular bundle of DNA, never to be duplicated. Full of wit and thoughtful exploration of a rarely discussed subject, this book is a real winner.
