All That Remains: A Life in Death

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And don't forget about the smell if you try to hide body parts in your cupboard or beneath your driveway (yes, she's seen this). It incorporates the mechanics of forensic science - sometimes gruesome but always respectful and interesting - and a discourse on death and life.

Black seems to enjoy the dead, more than the living, and investigating mutilated limbs is her icing on the cake.Unfortunately those of us who want our bodies to go to science will be disappointed to learn those cadavers are not accepted w/suicide. This fascinating look by a world-leading forensic scientist at what the dead can tell us is a real eye-opener. From 2003 to 2018 she was Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee. It's a mish-mash of history, science, memoir, police investigations, cold cases, natural disasters, education and invention. Publishing trends are always inexplicable; but recently we have had Raymond Tallis examining his own future cadaver in The Black Mirror, Richard Holloway contemplating mortality (and even immortality) in Waiting For The Last Bus, Maggie O'Farrell chronicling her 17 brushes with death in I Am, I Am, I Am and Kathryn Mannix's subtle With The End In Mind.

She offers a pragmatic look on death and dying and how sometimes the process is worse for the living. For example, dismembering a body in certain ways cases too much leakage, making it harder to move and there really is a best way to remove a human head. It is, as she eloquently says, that, “whatever we believe, life and death are unquestionably inextricably bound parts of the same continuum”. Part memoir, part science, part meditation on death, her book is compassionate, surprisingly funny, and it will make you think about death in a new light. As a Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, she focuses on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites, at scenes of violence, murder and criminal dismemberment, and when investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident or natural disaster.

The one that bothered me particularly is that she says that the surgeon Henry Gray, the author of Gray’s anatomy, was from Aberdeen. If you ever wondered about the life of a forensic anthropologist, Sue Black reveals the truth behind the TV screens. In 2012 I did donate my 93 Yr Mother's cadaver to science and after that event read Mary Roach's book Cadavers and felt some guilt but I've got over that.

She uses chilling terms like when someone "no longer has value" "and "doesn't want to be a burden" or really just doesn't want to live anymore. This is a very personal look at the many faces of death as described by one of Britain’s leading forensic anthropologists, and covers everything from the various ways a body can be buried or preserved, what happens to a body after death, and how forensic anthropologists can establish any number of things about an individual from their remains. It is a treat for CSI junkies, murder mystery and thriller readers, and anyone seeking a clear-eyed guide to a subject that touches us all. As Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, she focuses on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites, at scenes of violence, murder and criminal dismemberment, and when investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident or natural disaster. I also saw her speak live, and the manner in which she catastrophised her experiences in Africa, and ridiculed the abilities of medical professionals dealing with minimal resources in the aftermath of civil war is appalling.

She speaks of the interesting people she meets as part of her work in a university anatomy department, and delicate but not awful experiences like giving a potential full body donor a tour of the cadaver lab in use.

It doesn’t creep her out to think of that, no more than it did to meet her future cadaver, a matter-of-fact, curious elderly gentleman named Arthur. Leaves you thinking about what kind of human qualities you value, what kinds of people you actually want to be with. Whether in Kosovo or in Thailand, where she assisted with identifying victims after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Black accepts that such forensic work is “a job that nobody else in their right mind would ever want to do”. In 38C heat, dressed in a white scene-of-crime suit, black rubber police wellies, a face mask and double latex gloves, she was standing at the door of an outhouse near a Kosovo village. It was Black’s unenviable task to retrieve body parts and personal effects that could be used to identify the victims, as well as to collect bullets and casings in the hope of identifying the perpetrators of this appalling war crime.As is probably well established by now I love medical nonfiction so I was excited to pick this book up, especially because the publisher compares Black's writing to Caitlin Doughty and Mary Roach.