The Dead Beat

Many newspapers readers go straight to the obituaries pages, to celebrate the life of the pharmacist who was also a spy, the school dinner lady who spent her evenings as a ballroom hostess. Marilyn Johnson investigates what makes the obit pages so interesting, finding the people who write about the dead and savouring the most caustic and literate obits of all. She leads us into the culture behind the obituary page. The result is a compelling history and guide to obituaries, a literary journey through recent history and a celebration of the unusual lives we don't appreciate until they are gone.