Author Haley Campbell shadows various workers in death as they perform their work, describing the finer details of the processes and her own emotional reactions to them. Campbell argues that our society is too far removed from death, and that the taboo against visual or tactile contact with our dead does us harm. I read this book shortly after Anil Press’ Dirty Work, where he writes about jobs that we pretend don’t exist in order to avoid our own moral culpability. Here, Campbell reveals a world from which we remove ourselves in order insulate us from the reality of our own fragility.. By turns nauseating, poetic, heartbreaking, and strangely uplifting, All the Living and the Dead is written with bravery and vulnerability. Highly recommended.

I received this Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.