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A review by lpm100
What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator by Barbara Butcher
challenging
dark
funny
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Book Review
"What the Dead Know"
5+/5 stars
"A Real Life Kay Scarpetta"
******
I have read one Patricia Cornwell book, and I have to say that she is good but she has nothing on this author.
And that is because Barbara Butcher gathered all of her stories from Real Life Experience.
This is more than a dry recitation of facts, as there is enough biography / narrative arc to keep it from becoming that.
And all of this in only probably 3 to 4 hours worth of reading time.
We have as our tour guide through a seldom glimpse reality: a lesbian former alcoholic/drug addict (and post-retirement actress/writer) that came into this job as a third career in New York City. She started in 1992 and retired in 2015 after she was ejected by Bill deBlasio.
After that, she was admitted to a mental hospital for quite some time-- even receiving electrical convulsive therapy.
Acquired facts:
1a. "Homicide" can be a misleading word. If someone is that close to death because of blocked arteries and you walk up and sneeze on him and he dies...... The cause is still homicide caused by atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. (The subtext is that you just cannot readily believe what you read in a newspaper about said topic.)
1b. Homicide≠murder. Knowing the difference requires ascertaining justification and intent.
2. It has been my experience working that funeral directors tend to have problems with alcoholism. Alcoholism and drug addiction are running themes throughout this book (including the author's own alcohol / drug abuse). I guess it's just something about working in death industries. Also, depression, as a result of working with dead people all day everyday.
This book just confirmed something that I've already known for a long time.
3. Medical examiner≠forensic pathologist. Forensic pathologists figure out the cause of death. Medical examiners figure out how.
4. The fortune is told again that somebody is adopted of unknown parents and the mental problems of their parents resurface in a big way. (Jerry Strohmeyer. Etc.) Daphne Abdela was the adopted psychopath featured in this book. It's not hard to believe that adopted children will disproportionately have mental problems.
5. It's a very bad idea to find your sense of meaning from your job, and that is because once the job finishes, a person is in danger of losing his/her life meaning--as actually happened to the author. All it took was one corrupt administration - - deBlasio- and the author lost her job and spent months in a mental hospital recovering.
6. (p.53) between 1992 and 2015, the years of the author's career, homicides declined from 2,397 to 285 (88%).
Best chapters....
All of the book was good, but I'd have to say the most interesting chapters were:
1. Hoarders. It happened enough times that she had to include a chapter of people that hoarded so much that the door to the apartment couldn't even be opened. Another of two Collyer brothers that had 120 tons of product in their apartment.
2. Suicides. (Quotes 10, 11, 12.)
Quotes:
1. Reuven raced back to the office where he fielded calls from his girlfriend and his wife. Mrs Reuven thought that he worked the day shift; His girlfriend thought he worked 4-12s.
2. People can handle the truth, but not uncertainty. The things they imagine are almost always more painful than the facts.
3. Neighborhood kids would bring me their roadkill finds, and I'd dissect them in front of an eager audience.
4. Relatives sometimes claimed that the decedent was carrying $1,000 and that First responders had stolen it. It was always $1,000, for some reason.
5. Dead men *do* tell tales. You just have to listen.
6. Nothing ruins a beautiful theory like an ugly fact.
7. The most popular of the solitary pleasures was auto-erotic asphyxiation, often mistaken for suicide..... Some people gratify themselves by wrapping their bodies and latex, breathing only through a tiny straw, which can clog.
8. (About her *coworker* Nathan): it was the same kind of need that made him smoke crack. Nathan was a junkie full of dreams.
9. But I knew better - - gang and drug-related murders were rarely solved, and by the time they were, the perks were already dead, victims of their lifestyle. It was an occupational hazard.
10. That is the ultimate loneliness, when you're only available friend is the stranger who just investigated your death. (The author went to a synagogue to ask the rabbi to say kadish for a suicide decedent.)
11. The bodies at the Marriott tended to ricochet off the balcony rails and the elevator shaft, breaking into pieces before landing at the feet of shocked and terrified guests. That wintry afternoon, I accidentally stepped on a piece of the man's liver while walking through his scattered remains.
12. I have seen scores of suicides.....they fell roughly into two categories: angry and sad. The angry suicides died publicly, in violence, noise and blood - - with a bang, not a whimper. The sad suicides were quieter, more private. An overdose of pills at home in bed over the end of a marriage, carbon monoxide in the garage after years of loneliness, slashed wrists after the death of a loved one.
13. When everything around you is chaos, you focus on what you can control, no matter how seemingly unimportant that is.
Vocab :
cerebellar ataxia
stippling
rigor mortis
livor mortis
algor mortis
Collyer brothers
fascinoma
forensic odontology
Verdict: Strongly recommended. You cannot fail to get something from this book
"What the Dead Know"
5+/5 stars
"A Real Life Kay Scarpetta"
******
I have read one Patricia Cornwell book, and I have to say that she is good but she has nothing on this author.
And that is because Barbara Butcher gathered all of her stories from Real Life Experience.
This is more than a dry recitation of facts, as there is enough biography / narrative arc to keep it from becoming that.
And all of this in only probably 3 to 4 hours worth of reading time.
We have as our tour guide through a seldom glimpse reality: a lesbian former alcoholic/drug addict (and post-retirement actress/writer) that came into this job as a third career in New York City. She started in 1992 and retired in 2015 after she was ejected by Bill deBlasio.
After that, she was admitted to a mental hospital for quite some time-- even receiving electrical convulsive therapy.
Acquired facts:
1a. "Homicide" can be a misleading word. If someone is that close to death because of blocked arteries and you walk up and sneeze on him and he dies...... The cause is still homicide caused by atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. (The subtext is that you just cannot readily believe what you read in a newspaper about said topic.)
1b. Homicide≠murder. Knowing the difference requires ascertaining justification and intent.
2. It has been my experience working that funeral directors tend to have problems with alcoholism. Alcoholism and drug addiction are running themes throughout this book (including the author's own alcohol / drug abuse). I guess it's just something about working in death industries. Also, depression, as a result of working with dead people all day everyday.
This book just confirmed something that I've already known for a long time.
3. Medical examiner≠forensic pathologist. Forensic pathologists figure out the cause of death. Medical examiners figure out how.
4. The fortune is told again that somebody is adopted of unknown parents and the mental problems of their parents resurface in a big way. (Jerry Strohmeyer. Etc.) Daphne Abdela was the adopted psychopath featured in this book. It's not hard to believe that adopted children will disproportionately have mental problems.
5. It's a very bad idea to find your sense of meaning from your job, and that is because once the job finishes, a person is in danger of losing his/her life meaning--as actually happened to the author. All it took was one corrupt administration - - deBlasio- and the author lost her job and spent months in a mental hospital recovering.
6. (p.53) between 1992 and 2015, the years of the author's career, homicides declined from 2,397 to 285 (88%).
Best chapters....
All of the book was good, but I'd have to say the most interesting chapters were:
1. Hoarders. It happened enough times that she had to include a chapter of people that hoarded so much that the door to the apartment couldn't even be opened. Another of two Collyer brothers that had 120 tons of product in their apartment.
2. Suicides. (Quotes 10, 11, 12.)
Quotes:
1. Reuven raced back to the office where he fielded calls from his girlfriend and his wife. Mrs Reuven thought that he worked the day shift; His girlfriend thought he worked 4-12s.
2. People can handle the truth, but not uncertainty. The things they imagine are almost always more painful than the facts.
3. Neighborhood kids would bring me their roadkill finds, and I'd dissect them in front of an eager audience.
4. Relatives sometimes claimed that the decedent was carrying $1,000 and that First responders had stolen it. It was always $1,000, for some reason.
5. Dead men *do* tell tales. You just have to listen.
6. Nothing ruins a beautiful theory like an ugly fact.
7. The most popular of the solitary pleasures was auto-erotic asphyxiation, often mistaken for suicide..... Some people gratify themselves by wrapping their bodies and latex, breathing only through a tiny straw, which can clog.
8. (About her *coworker* Nathan): it was the same kind of need that made him smoke crack. Nathan was a junkie full of dreams.
9. But I knew better - - gang and drug-related murders were rarely solved, and by the time they were, the perks were already dead, victims of their lifestyle. It was an occupational hazard.
10. That is the ultimate loneliness, when you're only available friend is the stranger who just investigated your death. (The author went to a synagogue to ask the rabbi to say kadish for a suicide decedent.)
11. The bodies at the Marriott tended to ricochet off the balcony rails and the elevator shaft, breaking into pieces before landing at the feet of shocked and terrified guests. That wintry afternoon, I accidentally stepped on a piece of the man's liver while walking through his scattered remains.
12. I have seen scores of suicides.....they fell roughly into two categories: angry and sad. The angry suicides died publicly, in violence, noise and blood - - with a bang, not a whimper. The sad suicides were quieter, more private. An overdose of pills at home in bed over the end of a marriage, carbon monoxide in the garage after years of loneliness, slashed wrists after the death of a loved one.
13. When everything around you is chaos, you focus on what you can control, no matter how seemingly unimportant that is.
Vocab :
cerebellar ataxia
stippling
rigor mortis
livor mortis
algor mortis
Collyer brothers
fascinoma
forensic odontology
Verdict: Strongly recommended. You cannot fail to get something from this book