Marilyn Johnson was enthralled by the remarkable lives that were marching out of this world—so she sought out the best obits in the English language and the people who spent their lives writing about the dead. She surveyed the darkest corners of Internet chat rooms, and made a pilgrimage to London to savor the most caustic and literate obits of all. Now she leads us on a compelling journey into the cult and culture behind the obituary page and the unusual lives we don't quite appreciate until they're gone.
The Dead Beat (P.S.)
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Once upon a time, journalism profs duly instructed their greenhorn grads to seek out community papers and the obit pages as logical entrance points into the world of newspaper reporting. Working for cash-strapped local papers allowed novices to practice writing everything from hard news to lifestyle features. Obituaries, meanwhile, were a rung on the ladder of major publications, albeit the lowest. The musty, dusty obit pages also traditionally hosted aging reporters put out to pasture. Not any more, argues author Marilyn Johnson in her unabashedly knock-kneed love letter to the obit pages, The Dead Beat. Today, august publications like The New York Times, England's Daily Telegraph, Independent, and The Economist, and Canada's Globe and Mail use exalted members of the fourth estate to turn out smart, hip tributes to widespread, almost cultish, acclaim. Why? Because, as Johnson persuasively demonstrates in her book, truth is almost always stranger than fiction and a well-written, deeply researched obit is not only a vital historical record but a damn fine read over coffee and toast. "God is my assignment editor," cracks Richard Pearson of the Washington Post and if that isn't more interesting than what's going on in your city council chambers, author Johnson and those working the so-called Dead Beat don't know what is.
As Johnson explains in free-wheeling prose, today's obit writers are virtual folk heroes with global Internet followings and their own conventions. With care and an ear for gentle humour, Johnson guides her readers through the surprisingly structured, labyrinthine obit scene, pausing to meet the writers while pondering both the essence of our being and why, in the right hands, the life of an average Joe can be just as riveting as the shenanigans of a high-flying playboy. And infinitely more resonant. Savvy J-school professors and their students are advised to take heed. --Kim Hughes --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A journalist who's written obituaries of Princess Di and Johnny Cash, Johnson counts herself among the obit obsessed, one who subsists on the "tiny pieces of cultural flotsam to profound illuminations of history" gathered from obits from around the world, which she reads online daily—sometimes for hours. Her quirky, accessible book starts at the Sixth Great Obituary Writers' International Conference, where she meets others like herself. Johnson explores this written form like a scholar, delving into the differences between British and American obits, as well as regional differences within this country; she visits Chuck Strum, the New York Times' obituary editor, but also highlights lesser-known papers that offer top-notch obits; she reaffirms life as much as she talks about death. Johnson handles her offbeat topic with an appropriate level of humor, while still respecting the gravity of mortality—traits she admires in the best obit writers, who have "empathy and detachment; sensitivity and bluntness." The book claims that obits "contain the most creative writing in journalism" and that we are currently in the golden age of the obituary. We are also nearing the end of newspapers as we know them, Johnson observes, and so "it seems right that their obits are flourishing." (Mar. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Adena Franz
Format:Hardcover
Obituary writers, like those who toil at the IRS audit department or in the city sewers, are accustomed to the inevitable widening eyes, visible shudders and morbid remarks triggered by their reply to the question: "What do you do for a living?"
Marilyn Johnson's The Dead Beat tells quite a different story. An avid reader will instantly know she's in the throes of an accomplished author, gripped by an original perspective that captures the imagination and delights the soul. Johnson declares that an "obit" writer dwells in a world of humour, poignancy, marvellousness, perverseness, and pleasure. It's a world celebrating life, and what can be more glorious than that!
Ever since the Obituary Revolution in the 80s turned "the obit page from a holding pen for broken-down journalists" into a fascinating vocation akin to detective work scouring for the key that is the secret of a life just passed, waking up tense every day to wonder if her subject has died yet, the charged life of an obit writer is getting better all the time. And with an aging population about to set fire to the funeral business, it's never been a better time to celebrate.
Johnson's style is energetic, imaginative and personably engaging: "One of the great things about this vocation is its expandability...(it) can take you to heroin level in no time" she writes, extending an invitation to walk up ninth avenue in New York to meet the editor of obituaries from the New York Times. The interview is one of many in the United States and Britain, and extends memorably to Jim Nicolson, the "father of all obit writers" who set the standard in the Philadelphia Daily News in 1982 for writing about the ordinary man. "Nicholson plucked people out of the sea of agate type and wrote full-blown feature-style obituaries about them: a janitor, a grandma known for her love of poker, `a world-class scammer.'" Budding obit journalists were tutored into the profession by his obit kit.
Johnson's book offers more than a tour of editors and writers. She covers the annual gathering of writers are the Sixth Great Obituary Writers' International Conference, attendance at the celebrity memorial service for Arthur Miller, and offers a grand chapter on how 9/11 created the Portrait Page.There's her not-so-favourable opinion of tributes, a literary set piece of which she says life has been written out. There's marvellous descriptions of the British obituary scene where in London, obits dominate in quality and quantity, generous with understatement and use of The Code (euphemisms such as "passed on").
And lastly, an introduction to alt.obituaries, a Google group considered Grand Central where obituaries are posted and discussed. "The good ones are as intoxicating as a lung full of snowy air."
Johnson's focus on life touches a nerve. It's true: "obituaries have a pull, a natural gravity, for those of us who've observed that life has a way of ending."
This is a grand book that opens the door for explorations into the challenges facing the obituary industry: how to increase visibility for women and Negroes (who oddly enough, don't seem to die very often), of a declining traditional newspaper readership, difficult economic times and modern technology that facilitates all forms of dying such as Art Buchwald's online video.
Marilyn Johnson's The Dead Beat tells quite a different story. An avid reader will instantly know she's in the throes of an accomplished author, gripped by an original perspective that captures the imagination and delights the soul. Johnson declares that an "obit" writer dwells in a world of humour, poignancy, marvellousness, perverseness, and pleasure. It's a world celebrating life, and what can be more glorious than that!
Ever since the Obituary Revolution in the 80s turned "the obit page from a holding pen for broken-down journalists" into a fascinating vocation akin to detective work scouring for the key that is the secret of a life just passed, waking up tense every day to wonder if her subject has died yet, the charged life of an obit writer is getting better all the time. And with an aging population about to set fire to the funeral business, it's never been a better time to celebrate.
Johnson's style is energetic, imaginative and personably engaging: "One of the great things about this vocation is its expandability...(it) can take you to heroin level in no time" she writes, extending an invitation to walk up ninth avenue in New York to meet the editor of obituaries from the New York Times. The interview is one of many in the United States and Britain, and extends memorably to Jim Nicolson, the "father of all obit writers" who set the standard in the Philadelphia Daily News in 1982 for writing about the ordinary man. "Nicholson plucked people out of the sea of agate type and wrote full-blown feature-style obituaries about them: a janitor, a grandma known for her love of poker, `a world-class scammer.'" Budding obit journalists were tutored into the profession by his obit kit.
Johnson's book offers more than a tour of editors and writers. She covers the annual gathering of writers are the Sixth Great Obituary Writers' International Conference, attendance at the celebrity memorial service for Arthur Miller, and offers a grand chapter on how 9/11 created the Portrait Page.There's her not-so-favourable opinion of tributes, a literary set piece of which she says life has been written out. There's marvellous descriptions of the British obituary scene where in London, obits dominate in quality and quantity, generous with understatement and use of The Code (euphemisms such as "passed on").
And lastly, an introduction to alt.obituaries, a Google group considered Grand Central where obituaries are posted and discussed. "The good ones are as intoxicating as a lung full of snowy air."
Johnson's focus on life touches a nerve. It's true: "obituaries have a pull, a natural gravity, for those of us who've observed that life has a way of ending."
This is a grand book that opens the door for explorations into the challenges facing the obituary industry: how to increase visibility for women and Negroes (who oddly enough, don't seem to die very often), of a declining traditional newspaper readership, difficult economic times and modern technology that facilitates all forms of dying such as Art Buchwald's online video.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By David White
Format:Paperback
A wonderfully written book about wonderful writing.
Even if you're not a fan of obits, you will be a fan of this book.
Even if you're not a fan of obits, you will be a fan of this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars
44 reviews
59 of 62 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The obituary as art form
Mar 4 2006
By Eileen Rieback
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
This morning I read the obituaries in the newspaper. These have never been a part of my daily reading - at least not until I read Marilyn Johnson's "The Dead Beat." It's a funny and touching book that led me to discover an unsung yet immensely popular literary form to which I had never before given a second glance. This book isn't about the paid obituaries by friends and relatives of the deceased. It's about the life (and death) stories written by newspaper staff writers. They are tributes to celebrities, ordinary folks, and those who had a peripheral role in a historic or social context of their day. Besides presenting the story of a life, they are history as it is happening.
The author shares her enthusiasm for both reading and writing obituaries. She covers the history and evolution of the obituary format and content. She describes the obit fanatics who attend the Great Obituary Writers' Conference and who haunt Internet web sites, exchanging the latest gems they have unearthed from newspapers around the globe. She interviews obit writers and editors, and compares and contrasts the writing styles of various newspapers, especially between the American and British. She includes selections from obituaries that sparkle with wit and resonate with the essence of lives lost; they are poetry, folk art, gossip, and short story rolled into one.
Allow me to leave you with this example from the book, one which demonstrates that obits can be humorous: "Selma Koch, a Manhattan store owner who earned a national reputation by helping women find the right bra size, mostly through a discerning glance and never with a tape measure, died Thursday at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She was 95 and a 34B." If this fascinating book about an unusual subject doesn't convert you into an obituary reader, then nothing will!
Eileen Rieback
The author shares her enthusiasm for both reading and writing obituaries. She covers the history and evolution of the obituary format and content. She describes the obit fanatics who attend the Great Obituary Writers' Conference and who haunt Internet web sites, exchanging the latest gems they have unearthed from newspapers around the globe. She interviews obit writers and editors, and compares and contrasts the writing styles of various newspapers, especially between the American and British. She includes selections from obituaries that sparkle with wit and resonate with the essence of lives lost; they are poetry, folk art, gossip, and short story rolled into one.
Allow me to leave you with this example from the book, one which demonstrates that obits can be humorous: "Selma Koch, a Manhattan store owner who earned a national reputation by helping women find the right bra size, mostly through a discerning glance and never with a tape measure, died Thursday at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She was 95 and a 34B." If this fascinating book about an unusual subject doesn't convert you into an obituary reader, then nothing will!
Eileen Rieback
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A love letter to obituary writers
April 14 2006
By Alana Baranick
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
"The Dead Beat" is Marilyn Johnson's love letter to those of us who make a living writing about the dead.
Although the former Life magazine writer has written obituaries for such celebrities as Katherine Hepburn, Marlon Brando and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, she penned her book from the perspective of a fan of end-of-life mini-biographies and the newspaper reporters who compose them.
She examines our stories about recently deceased folks, looking for unusual facts and clever turns of phrase. She gets giddy at uncovering slices of life that are foreign to her, like the existence of polka halls of fame and the "Irish sports page" as a nickname for the obit page. She wonders what terminology to use for the various parts of an obit.
Her keen observations and wonderful way with words provide images that likely will be included in the "last writes" of some obit writers she has met. She compares Larken Bradley, "who writes kindly of old hippies" - dead hippies, of course - for the weekly Point Reyes (Calif.) Light, and Caroline Richmond, "a tough-skinned Brit" who pens "prickly obits" of physicians for the British Medical Journal. She says that Catherine Dunphy of the Toronto Star "manages to make Toronto, a city I've never seen, into a place I feel I know."
Her portrait of the retired Jim Nicholson, regarded as the father of "Average Joe" obits, alone is worth the price of the book.
"Dead Beat" is not an anthology, like many New York Times and Daily Telegraph of London obit books. Nor is it a how-to, like "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers."
It is an easy- and pleasure-to-read look at once-in-a-lifetime stories and their composers.
Although the former Life magazine writer has written obituaries for such celebrities as Katherine Hepburn, Marlon Brando and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, she penned her book from the perspective of a fan of end-of-life mini-biographies and the newspaper reporters who compose them.
She examines our stories about recently deceased folks, looking for unusual facts and clever turns of phrase. She gets giddy at uncovering slices of life that are foreign to her, like the existence of polka halls of fame and the "Irish sports page" as a nickname for the obit page. She wonders what terminology to use for the various parts of an obit.
Her keen observations and wonderful way with words provide images that likely will be included in the "last writes" of some obit writers she has met. She compares Larken Bradley, "who writes kindly of old hippies" - dead hippies, of course - for the weekly Point Reyes (Calif.) Light, and Caroline Richmond, "a tough-skinned Brit" who pens "prickly obits" of physicians for the British Medical Journal. She says that Catherine Dunphy of the Toronto Star "manages to make Toronto, a city I've never seen, into a place I feel I know."
Her portrait of the retired Jim Nicholson, regarded as the father of "Average Joe" obits, alone is worth the price of the book.
"Dead Beat" is not an anthology, like many New York Times and Daily Telegraph of London obit books. Nor is it a how-to, like "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers."
It is an easy- and pleasure-to-read look at once-in-a-lifetime stories and their composers.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Witty and wonderful
Mar 23 2006
By Jon Hunt
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I used to think that funeral directors must have the best conventions but after reading Marilyn Johnson's "The Dead Beat" I'll give the nod to obituary writers. This book is terrific from beginning to end and is full of humor, and, by the way, good writing.
Johnson does more than simply offer anecdotal obituaries...she comments on death and aspects relating to it. This book has a warm feel...even if her subject is one some of us tend to want to forget. To be a successful obituary writer one seems to need a knack for humor, and not "black" humor, necessarily. The author gives us her best when she does indeed share some of the contributions she has uncovered. Johnson quotes a man named Bob Schenley, who wrote an obit of a Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster..."Almost everyone in Pittsburgh who loves baseball....loved Bob Prince, unless, of course, they actually knew him. He was a miserable mean-spirited drunk." My favorite, however, was this one written about Suzanne Kaaren, ninety-two, an actress who had appeared in several Three Stooges shorts. Penned by Stephen Miller, he said of Kaaren, "The Stooges seemed to value her opinion and regularly tried out new material on her." This kind of writing is dead-on funny.
The unusual narrow shape of "The Dead Beat" gives the reader the feeling of scanning a newspaper and is another welcome addition. Johnson delivers a flow which never lets down and does not disappoint. I loved "The Dead Beat" and I highly recommend it.
Johnson does more than simply offer anecdotal obituaries...she comments on death and aspects relating to it. This book has a warm feel...even if her subject is one some of us tend to want to forget. To be a successful obituary writer one seems to need a knack for humor, and not "black" humor, necessarily. The author gives us her best when she does indeed share some of the contributions she has uncovered. Johnson quotes a man named Bob Schenley, who wrote an obit of a Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster..."Almost everyone in Pittsburgh who loves baseball....loved Bob Prince, unless, of course, they actually knew him. He was a miserable mean-spirited drunk." My favorite, however, was this one written about Suzanne Kaaren, ninety-two, an actress who had appeared in several Three Stooges shorts. Penned by Stephen Miller, he said of Kaaren, "The Stooges seemed to value her opinion and regularly tried out new material on her." This kind of writing is dead-on funny.
The unusual narrow shape of "The Dead Beat" gives the reader the feeling of scanning a newspaper and is another welcome addition. Johnson delivers a flow which never lets down and does not disappoint. I loved "The Dead Beat" and I highly recommend it.
›
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