Short abstract
A look at the changing art of obituary writing
For people hoping for posthumous recognition, there has never been a better time to die.
For a start it's summertime, the season when obituary copy traditionally runs dry. More importantly, obituaries are enjoying the type of popularity once reserved for England's cricketers, the London broad-sheets are devoting more space to recognising the recently departed, and there is even an International Association of Obituarists, which holds an annual conference to explore developments in the field.
You may think this is taking the business of dying a bit too seriously. But the world, it seems, is full of secret obituary readers who are gradually coming out of their closets. Mention at any dinner party that you are an obituary writer and someone always admits to turning to the obituary page first. And they are, er, dying for more.
It's not just the dry bones (excuse the pun) of a life lived that these enthusiasts want to read. They want some flesh to chew on. A little bit of gossip goes a long way; a light sprinkling of scepticism over what otherwise appears to be a blameless life makes for an interesting read.
Figure 1.
Custer National Cemetery, Big Horn County, Montana
Credit: ERIK PENOZICH/REX
Newspapers and journals have long carried factual notices of death, whether as paid-for death notices or simply as reports of the event as a piece of news. But a good obituary demands something more. Sometimes the manner or cause of death can itself be newsworthy. That of Dr Phil Williams, the former Plaid Cymru member of the Welsh Assembly who died in June in a seedy massage parlour called A Touch of Class, is a good example of an unexpected—and therefore reportable—way to go.
We have to look back to the mid-1980s to date the arrival of the obituary as an art form. It was started, depending on your allegiance, either by the arrival of a new obituaries editor, Hugh Massingberd, at the Daily Telegraph, or the launch of the centre left broadsheet the Independent. Whichever it was, the obituary as an entertaining piece of writing was soon being developed by the other major national newspapers. Thereafter the idea of the obituary as a feature that went beyond a notification of death and list of achievements spread to specialist publications (such as the BMJ) and across the Atlantic.
The International Association of Obituarists was founded some six years ago by a former teacher, Carolyn Gilbert, a Texan with a fascination for reading about the lives of people she had never met. “We are a virtual centre for the art of the obituary,” she says, talking about how ideas, articles, and information are posted on the association's website. “But I would like it to become an academic institute.”
Once a year she brings together obituary writers, editors, and aficionados from across the world. On this year's agenda were discussions about good deaths, how to approach grieving relatives, and dealing with complaints.
Figure 2.
The innovative Hugh Massingberd
Credit: DAILY TELEGRAPH
Also under the spotlight was that trickiest of subjects, how to decide who makes the page. Boiled down, the answer was “editorial judgment”—the same as for every other page of a newspaper, magazine, or journal. Is the subject interesting? Does the author give it entertaining treatment?
Among those who spoke was Steve Miller, the newly appointed obituaries editor of the New York Sun. He was working for a Wall Street investment firm while publishing an occasional, highly irreverent magazine of obituaries, Good Bye! Then came the attack on New York on 11 September 2001. Miller was in the second tower of the World Trade Center. He escaped the destruction, but his job vanished in the debris.
He illustrated the difficulty the obituarist can face in creating an accurate but interesting summary of a life by comparing the task to the difficulty he has recalling the events of that terrible day: “If a few minutes of my own life—moments of irredeemable clarity that spanned at most a couple of hours—are so difficult to get right,” he says, “how much harder is it to present a truly accurate version of an entire life in 20 or 30 newspaper inches?”
Speaking to colleagues, family, supporters, and detractors helps obituary writers build a picture. The author can then, if appropriate, say on the one hand that the deceased was a successful inventor and on the other that he or she was a manipulative little shit. It is not always necessary for the author to reach a judgment. Others will no doubt do that. What is important is that the author gives the reader an entertaining read. And with so much more interest nowadays in the obituaries pages, standards are undoubtedly rising.