Review – The Dead Beat

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituariesby Marilyn JohnsonGenres: Non-fiction Pages: 252 Rating: Synopsis: Every morning, countless readers of the morning papers bypass the front page, neglect the sports section, and go directly to the obituary page. It's not morbid curiosity (or not just that) that motivates them. Legions of obsessive fans turn to the obit page first because it very often contains the most gripping and best-told stories of the day. In The Dead Beat, former Life magazine writer and Esquire editor Marilyn Johnson makes a smart and light-hearted survey of obituary writing, unraveling the cult and culture of obituaries to consider what our feelings about death--and the way we write about it--tell us about how we live. Marilyn Johnson’s The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries was a random pick for me; I’m not sure where I heard about it or why I added it to my Kobo via Kobo Plus, but it did…