James 24:7

The great anthropologist Gregory Bateson used to write what he called "metalogues," fictional conversations with his daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson.  In the metalogue, the form of the conversation was itself an example of the content of the conversation. 

Marilyn Johnson's new book The Dead Beat is an epiphany of epiphanies of epiphanies.  Her writing, like good poetry, opens your eyes to see the extraordinary in the ordinary to the degree that you have to wonder where her sizeable skills end and where grace begins.

On the surface, Ms. Johnson's book is an extended meditation on the obituary and the people who write obituaries.  She comes to her subject not as an objective observer (if, in fact, there is such a thing) but as a passionate lover of the "dead beat", the obituary page of the newspaper.

A globe-trotting and cyber-surfing sleuth of the obits, Ms. Johnson travels the U.S. and England to interview the people who specialize in capturing the sometimes hidden-in-plain-view individuality of the recently deceased. 

The central epiphany of the book is the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.  In her book, you will read about the man who could never resist sticking his head under any raised car hood, the Lady Penelope Aitken who frequently lunched with a gypsy from a nearby gypsy camp, and the mother of 13 children who had intended to write a book about her experiences but was too broken after rearing them to do so.   In recounting those stories, Ms. Johnson reminds us, to riff on a line from Thomas Merton, that all of these ordinary folks walk around blind to themselves but shining like the sun.

The second ephiphany of the book concerns the number of highly skilled artists who write obituaries.   Ms. Johnson explodes the myth that the obituary desk, like a backwoods small town, is a "great place to be from."  She introduces the reader to some of the best obit writers in the world and shows them to be incredible humorists, biographers and storytellers as they capture the essence of a person in 20 lines of newspaper copy.

The third epiphany of the book is the obituaries themselves.   Approaching the obituary with the zeal of a Bible scholar, Ms. Johnson proves to be an outstanding "form critic" as she carefully dissects the types and forms of these little biographical gems.

Ms. Johnson opens the book by showing how obituaries serve as both windows into the lives of their subjects but also into patterns of life.  She shows how people seem to die in sets and reminds us that history is comprised of a million little lives.

A good ethnologist, she lays bare the form of the obituary and, Adam-like, names the sections of a typical obituary. She introduces us to "the tombstone" and "the song and dance" and the "desperate chronology."

Her coverage of the ways in which the New York Times elected to cover the unbearable weight of almost 3000 deaths on 9/11 is riveting.  The distinctions she draws between the English form and the American form of obituaries is revelatory.  The great cast of obituary writers, many of whom write in obscurity, is revealed.  (The book even includes pictures and revealing quotes.)

Ms. Johnson includes a great appendix of online sources and resources for the reader who wants to dive into the deep end of the obituary section of the paper.

I began this review by claiming that there are three epiphanies in The Dead Beat.  I have changed my mind...there are four.

Ms. Johnson is an epiphany in her own right.  She is a funny, smart, engaging and highly skilled writer..a kind-heart and, I think, a large soul.