Searching for obituaries is the most frequent kind of local history request I field at the library, and I like to joke when I’m disappearing into the archives room that I’m off hunting for dead people. I’ve noticed over the years that obituaries often rise to the quality of literature, and so I was immediately interested in this title. Written in the very early 2000s, it delivers both its intentional interest — obituaries and those that write them — as well as unintentional interest, in looking back to when the internet hadn’t ravaged papers big and small, and when the internet itself was a different experience: there’s an entire chapter here on the Usenet for obituary enthusiasts. Johnson examines obituaries in both the United States and Britain, and interviews notable obit-writers whose skill at capturing the life of the recently deceased had brought them some slim measure of fame. There is an art to the obituary in finding the appropriate facts & stories to create a sense of the person who perished, not merely reprise a staid series of facts about a funeral home entry. Although we read of celebrity deaths here, there’s a good focus on ordinary lives as well, especially in the section on 9/11 and the way the New York Times began honoring the lives of those murdered that day. Johnson also visits England’s principal papers, incuding The Economist, to see how their approaches vary. I enjoyed this title, but I suspect its audience is limited.

Coming up: another title by Johnson, this one on the messy tango between librarians and computers.

One of my favorite obituaries spotted in papers, this one from 1907:

In these mercenary days, others might lower the high ideals of the brave old days and become worshipers of Ba’al, but not he. In the country of his youth and young manhood, Honor was king and kindness, courtest, truth, and courage were his ministers. What wonder, then, that these ruled his whole life and made him noted throughout the Black Belt of Alabama. To offer him an insult was to take a Numidian lion by the beard: and he has been known as one that would uphold his principles on the field of honor. And now the brave and generous heart is stilled forever. We shall not soon forget him, for he was a rare man and one whose like we shall not soon see again. May he sleep restfully under the magnolias until that final day when each shall receive his just reward.