Stiff by Mary Roach
Mary Roach takes the age-old question, “What happens to us after we die?” quite literally. And in Stiff, she explores the “lives” of human cadavers from the time of the ancient Egyptians all the way up to current campaigns for human composting. Along the way, she recounts with morbidly infectious glee how dead bodies are used for research ranging from car safety and plastic surgery (you’ll cancel your next collagen injection after reading this!), to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.
Impossible (and irreverent) as it may sound, Roach has written a book about corpses that’s both lively and fresh. She traveled around the globe to conduct her forensic investigations, and her findings are wryly intelligent. While the myriad uses for cadavers recounted are often graphic, Roach imbues her subject with a sense of dignity, choosing to emphasize the oddly noble purposes corpses serve, from organ donation to lifesaving medical research.
Readers will come away convinced of the enormous debt that we, the living, owe to the study of the remains of the dead. And while it may not offer the answer to the ancient mystery we were hoping for, Stiff offers a strange sort of comfort in the knowledge that, in a sense, death isn’t necessarily the end.
For the Reading Challenge(s):
2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
The Reason
This book has the honor of being one of the oldest books on my TBR. I bought a copy not long after it came out about 20 years ago, and I had even started reading it a few times but it never stuck. I no longer have my original copy but I have finally read it!
The Quotes
“We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.”
“You are a person and then you cease to be a person, and a cadaver takes your place.”
“Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.”
“I guess I feel the same way about being a corpse. Why lie around on your back when you can do something interesting and new, something useful?”
The Narrator(s)
Shelly Frasier. It was great, no complaints!
My Thoughts
I don’t know why it took me so long to read this book. It’s not for the lack of interest, I think, but rather taking it for granted when I had it on my shelves, and then forgetting about it when I no longer had it. I finally read it now, after so many years, because I happened to be on a nonfiction binge and it was one of the books available immediately on Libby.
As had been promised all these years, it was fascinating and I loved it! I was afraid that it might feel a little dated as I had read other more recently published books about death and dead bodies since this book was first published, but it didn’t feel that way to me. I still learned a lot of interesting information, and got quite morbidly curious about the part where she talks about cannibalism.
I don’t think I personally care what happens to my body after I die, I actually love the idea of being useful after I’m dead, but I do worry about possible cases of jumping the gun on harvesting organs from a person before they are dead. It doesn’t apply to me because I’m not a candidate for organ donation but it’s still disturbing that it has happened and can happen.
All in all, this was a great read, and would you believe it, my first Mary Roach book! She’s been a TBR author of mine for so long, I didn’t realize I haven’t actually read a single book until this one. I’m definitely looking out to read more from her.
My Rating
4/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
