…a wry, witty, deeply researched survey of the art and history of the obituary, reflecting on why obituaries matter and what it’s like to be charged with writing them … Roberts ponders the origins of the obituary, muses on the peculiarities of word choice (“In some newspapers, people still ‘pass’ or meet their ‘demise’ or ‘untimely end’ ”), and explores how different publications decide who will be memorialized in their pages and how to address their cause of death. He confides that landing on a succinct description of the latter is often challenging, as illustrated by a list of “actual, incredulous comments from Times obit writers” that includes gems like “Can we say, ‘In a crocodile accident’?” Read more
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