Obituary writing no dying discipline

Are They Dead Yet? The Art of the Obit — Sam Roberts

For a certain generation, the Saturday-morning cartoons of childhood have been replaced by weekend obituaries. If you read them closely, you’ll see former colleagues or friends you lost touch with, you’re not alone.

New York Times obituary writer Sam Roberts documented over 1,600 death diaries. A Times journalist for 57 years, in his book he has compiled a compendium of uplifting and fascinating miniature biographies in a book of the dead that has garnered him a massive following of curious folks. He proves there needn’t have known the deceased to appreciate their life lessons.

At age seven, Roberts witnessed the rehash of an executed couple, the Rosenbergs, which “fuelled my career and future reporting,” he says. When I started writing obituaries for a living, the word died was rarely used. Instead, we see “met their demise” or “gone home” or “joined the ancestors.” He credits obituary writing to “learning more about accuracy, context, and skepticism than I would have in any journalism school.”

Are They Dead Yet? gives new meaning to the word “deadline.” Roberts goaded his staff to research whether those in pre-death obits were, in fact, truly dead. He spotlights actor Abe Vigoda, who lived to age 97 — all of 37 years after he was declared gone.

No one gets out of here alive, but obits can preserve lives lived as a public record as well as to “bond one generation to the next,” as Roberts writes. He notes many Indigenous Peoples prefer oral tradition and ceremony over written words, and that women did not appear in obits until the 1800s, as recognition until then was the preserve for men only.

Newspapers also tended to print obits of well-known personalities written by staff, while the rest of humanity had to pay to eulogize loved ones.

Roberts sees news obits as postmortem to history. “Where else could you read about the person responsible for Chernobyl or the inventor of the wet suit?” he asks. He pays lip service to pet obituaries, and does an admirable job of social commentary.

He also cites the Washington Post as an example of a newspaper that, as recently as the 1970s, would not name gay people in their death columns. That was remedied somewhat by editors who used euphemisms as a secret code, Roberts says.

He admits obit writing demands a degree of empathy, and found humour also helped. Roberts’ personal anecdotes are comedy at its best. Everybody loves you when you’re dead — and in Are They Dead Yet? a Winnipegger makes the cut, as the author pays tribute to the “Gelato King,” Little Italy’s late Gino Nucci (who died in 2011), a proprietor who could really dish it out.

While outing Prince Philip and Henry Kissinger for racist remarks, the one person Roberts takes aim at in speaking ill of the dead is Charlie Kirk. He quotes the Times obituary referring to Kirk as “vocal in his willingness to spread unsupported claims and outright lies.” Kirk claimed climate change is “gibberish” and that Jews are “trying to replace Americans with non-white immigrants.”

It’s not too late to heed Roberts’ advice to make sure you get the last word by writing your own obit before your best before date. Like the many he helped immortalize, this too can be your legacy.

Heather Emberley titles as a poet and is a volunteer coach with Optimistic Obits.