ŷ������

Sometimes death can be funny. Monty Python’s tops that list, even though there are no dead humans involved. (I wish to register a complaint.) There have been many books written that use death as a satiric source, particularly dark examinations of the death industry. , both book and film, offers a lovely example. There are only a gazillion novels written about death--Benediction by Kent Haruf pops to mind--and a matching number of serious non-fiction treatments. Being Mortal provides a real-world look at impending end-of-life and ways to prepare. As you might suspect, You’ll Leave This World With Your Butt Sewn Shut is not among these.

There are books that teach us about how death is treated in the world today. Stiff pops to mind, adding Mary Roach’s side-splitting humor to a pop-science exploration. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes gives us another, the autobiography of a mortician with a pixie-ish sense of humor. The book under review here is of that sort. But while those books offer chapter-by-chapter exposition, this one offers a mass of trivia details, three-to-four to a page. Sure, it is arranged in six chapters, organizing like materials together. But really, it is a compendium of factoids, prime material for trivia

Did you know, for example, that a taphophile is a person with a passion for all things funereal, including cemetery, historical deaths, epitaph, and grave stone rubber. I probably qualify to some degree. Death holds no particular fascination. I am not into making , or skulking about in the usual places of the dead for morbid purposes. But I do find it fascinating learning the details of decay. Admittedly more so for my appreciation of the CSI aspects of them all than for some suspicious fixation. I enjoy these things, always have, and the snarky humor that pervades.

But I am no stranger to actual death and mortal concerns. By the time my father was my age, for example, he’d been dead for over four years. Tick tock. I survived a heart attack earlier this year, so have gotten up close and personal with mortality. Yet, while I do take death, my own and that of others, seriously I still retain a dark sense of humor about it all. My favorite Broadway musical of all time, for example, and tastiest, remains .

Did you know that a decaying body is not necessarily good plant food? Because of bodily products let loose and/or created in the area around the late plantee, the surrounding soil can look like fertilizer burn?

I am not particularly afraid of death, nor am I particularly eager to pass on, considering the disruption such an event could create for those left behind. (Please do not nail me to a perch) I do not believe there is a heaven or a hell. (That bucket is nicely tucked away in a corner, out of kicking range. ) But I do cleave slightly to the possibility of some conscious continuation beyond. (Just please, please don’t let it be eternity re-REMming my miserable dreams.) My cardiac crisis resulted in no out of body experiences, no tunnel vision, no life history flashing before my eyes. No looking to gain some angelic wings with an offer of assistance. No foxhole conversions. Nope, it was more like having a chicken bone stuck near the bottom of my throat, along with a remarkable fatigue.

Did you know that there have been 63 cases of syndrome since the term was coined in 1982? That’s where a person’s blood spontaneously begins to recirculate after cardiac arrest�� or, simply put, medically, dead come back to life? Better guard your brains. There are a ton of these things in this book, well 800 or so.

There are several repeating features in the book
Gory Details (You don’t want to know)
Dumb Ways to Die �� clearly a subset of winners
Wonderful quotes are featured in headstones. My personal favorite is by Steven Wright - When I die, I’m leaving my body to Science Fiction.

Back to my actual close encounter - Dash off to the ER, get a quick diagnosis, get stabilized, then get shipped off to the big hospital in my general neighborhood. Thankfully, there was no need for me to be subjected to a four-thousand-volt voom. He’s not stunned, he’s restin��. Well, for a while, at least. A week later I gained some new second-hand stents and a porcine (original) aortal valve. My relative lack of movement could indeed be due to bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.

There are diverse ways in which death is handled around the world. Some are lightly touched on--open-air removal in India is a particularly unusual rite--but the focus is primarily on American, and to a lesser extent, UK practices.

I was unable to focus well for a few months. (joined the bleedin' choir invisible!) Well, a bit faded, anyway. But not once during all this did I really feel like or fear that I was on the verge of death. (Denial?) That said, the nearest I felt to facing my earthly end was the unspeakable food served at the hospital. Delivered to my room like clockwork, it was clearly prepared in the basement by captive trolls, who added sundry bodily products as condiments. It reached the point where I would gag when the trays appeared, simply refusing to eat any of them, and begging the nurses for whatever might be tucked away in the local fridge, regardless of mold content. 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! No, not passed on, but passin�� on the awful grub and pinin�� for something edible.

Did you know that cosmic tunnels could actually just be tunnel vision from reduced blood flow to the eyes or that “rigor�� is only one form of “mortis,�� and it is not even the final one?

I did my best to irritate the staff, well, not intentionally. Almost all of them were lovely. Nurse, what's this for? What about that? What does this pill do, that one? When can you take out these tubes? Was that incision made with a fork? I would not say it was a pleasant experience for me, given the hospital's manic, relentless need to wake patients up for tests real and imaginary, or for the staff, given my ongoing demands for information, but we all managed to get out of it alive, somehow. (I presume, not having checked the obits.)

Did you know that there are individuals [who] believe they are already dead, do not exist, or have lost their vital organs? But since they’re still walking around in the world, and cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing, they also believe themselves to be immortal.

There are hundreds of these things, literally hundreds of bits of funereal trivia, to simulate your brain, your curiosity, or your funny bone. I rarely went more than a few pages without laughing out loud. The bit-by-bit-ness of the entire book makes it an easy one to pop into and out of when one’s interest wanes and waxes (There really is a thing called “body wax.�� It’s gross.) There is much to enjoy in You’ll Leave This World With Your Butt Sewn Shut. (Truthfully, only some of us will be so upholstered). If you share my sense of humor, you will enjoy this one, even if it’s not the last thing you do.

'E's shuffled off 'is mortal coil - well, shuffled, sure, but I expect to keep shuffling on this mortal coil for a good long time to come. I choose to focus on , which includes quite enjoying lots of odd bits about death and dying. And I will keep on with that. When it is finally my time to go, I would much prefer to die laughing.

Review posted - 9/13/24

Publication date �� 4/2/24

I received an ARE of You’ll Leave This World with Your Butt Sewn Shut from Castle Point Books in return for a fair review, and not expiring before I’d had a chance to write one, not a certainty. My recent adventure added three months to my existing two-month backlog, that one the result of someone else’s medical misadventure. Thanks for your patience, folks.



This review will soon be cross-posted on my site, . Stop by and say Hi!

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Author links? �� None that I was able to locate. Perhaps the author is a nom de plume, or has already, you know��

Profile - from Macmillan
Robyn Grimm is a freelance writer obsessed with learning as much as possible about this strange world we live in. Her small patch of it is in New Jersey, where she reads, writes, and bakes surrounded by her loving and hilarious family, both human and furry.

Books of Interest - Fiction
-----Benediction by Kent Haruf
----- by William Faulkner
----- by Evelyn Waugh

Books of Interest- Non-fiction
-----Stiff by Mary Roach
-----Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
-----Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Items of Interest
-----Monty Python’s Flying Circus -
-----Wikipedia -
-----The Telegraph -
-----Wikipedia -
-----Wikipedia -

Songs/Music
-----