For the dedicated obituary reader
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Check out this review on NPR for ‘The Daily Telegraph Fourth Book of Obituaries.’ Tom Rachman, a former journalist who recently published his debut novel, takes a look at the Telegraph collection edited by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd.
Rachman, who says he wrote a few obits in his day, offers this insight:
The obit is as close as news gets in structure to the short story. After all, how many other news articles have a conclusion? An obit also shares with literature a talent for the revealing detail, as in The Times of London obit of Cyril Connolly, which delightfully describes the intellectual’s ‘habit of marking his place in a book at the breakfast table with a strip of bacon.’ During my past career as a journalist, I relished writing obits and equally dreaded phoning relatives for the necessary facts. But to my surprise and great relief, they often wanted to talk — they wanted their recently deceased loved ones recorded in print.
Rachman’s essay was on ‘All Things Considered,’ from the ‘My Guilty Pleasure’ series.
-- Claire Noland
