Summary of All the Living and the Dead By Hayley Campbell: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work

By Willie M. Joseph

DISCLAIMER

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of All the Living and the Dead By Hayley Campbell: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work

 

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

 

Hayley Campbell's All the Living and the Dead is an exploration of the death industry and the people who work in it. Through interviews with mass fatality investigators, embalmers, executioners, gravediggers, cryonics facilities, homicide detectives, and crime scene cleaners, Campbell questions why people choose this kind of life and if we are missing something vital by letting death remain hidden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: May 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223574088

Willie M. Joseph

Willie M. Joseph summaries get straight to the point and provide essential tools to help you be an informed reader in a busy world, whether you’re browsing for new discoveries, managing your to-read list for work or school, or simply deepening your knowledge. Available for nonfiction titles, these are the book summaries that are worth your time.  

Book preview

NOTE TO READERS

This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Hayley Campbell’s All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work designed to enrich your reading experience.

DISCLAIMER

The contents of the summary are not intended to replace the original book. It is meant as a supplement to enhance the reader's understanding. The contents within can neither be stored electronically, transferred, nor kept in a database. Neither part nor full can the document be copied, scanned, faxed, or retained without the approval from the publisher or creator.

Limit of Liability

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. You agree to accept all risks of using the information presented inside this book.

––––––––

Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.

Introduction

The narrator's father, Eddie Campbell, was working on a graphic novel called From Hell, written by Alan Moore, about Jack the Ripper. The narrator's father, Eddie Campbell, was working on a graphic novel about Jack the Ripper and showed the full horror of his brutality in scratchy black and white. The narrator was fascinated by the crime scenes and wanted to know more. They wished the pictures were clearer and in colour, as their situation was too alien to them in Brisbane, Australia. The most important details in this text are that the narrator was seven when a bird hit the windowpane and the narrator created a felt-tip compendium of all the ways a human being could die violently.

This compendium included 24 pages of people being murdered, cut up with machetes, stabbed in the woods, boiled by witches, buried alive, left to hang for the birds to eat, and a drawing of a skull with the explanatory caption ‘If someone chops your head off and your skin rots you look like this’. The narrator also created a felt-tip compendium of all the ways a human being could die outside the house, such as when a bird, usually a magpie, would die and decompose, making the walking route to school impassable. The most important details in this text are that the narrator is a student at a Catholic school, and that their priest, Father Power, is a mumbling Irishman who speaks to the students plainly. One afternoon, Father Power pointed out a red light to the left of the altar and said that when the light was glowing, God was in the house. The narrator questions why the light was powered by an extension lead running up the wall and down the chain that suspended it, and is suspicious of organised religion.

The most important details in this text are that the narrator was captivated by death and wanted to know what happened to their friend Harriet, who drowned rescuing her dog in a flooded creek when they were twelve. At home, the narrator was praised for drawing skeletons and was shown that death was an inevitability. At school, the narrator was told to look away from the birds, drawings, and their dead friend, and was given other images of death that told them death was temporary. The most important details in this text are that death is everywhere, but it is veiled or fictional. On average, 6,324 people in the world die every hour, and for most of those deaths in the Western world, there will be a phone call to collect the body and transport it to the mortuary.

If needed, another person will be called to clean the place where the body lay decomposing until the neighbours complained. Death and the people who make it their work have become a preoccupation of mine for years. They are kept at a distance, as hidden as death itself. I wanted to know what ordinary human death looked like, not photographs, movies, birds, nor cats. They are drawn to the white, bleached pieces of long-dead people whose eyes, if you've found the right jar, stare out.

The most important details in this text are that the Western death industry is predicated on the idea that we cannot, or need not, be there. The author wanted to explore whether we are cheating ourselves out of some fundamental human knowledge by doing things this way, and if there is an antidote to the fear of death in knowing exactly what happens. They also wanted unromantic, unpoetic, unsanitised visions of death. The author wanted to shrink the size of death to something they could handle and grow their own thing from it. However, the more people they spoke to, the more questions were turned on them.

The author was naive as to how far down the damage goes, how much our attitude towards death affects our everyday lives, and how it stunts our ability to understand and grieve. They have finally seen what real death is like and the transformative power of seeing is almost beyond words.

The Edge of Mortality

Jeremy Bentham's severed head is on show for the first time in decades at a 'wake' for his 270th birthday at University College London. Dr Southwood Smith, executor of Bentham's will and dissector of his body, had tried to preserve it so it looked untouched, but it turned purple and stayed that way. Three years prior to the wake, a shy academic in charge of Bentham's care had shown it to