Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

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Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

by Mary Roach (Goodreads Author)

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 56,678 ratings · 6,010 reviews

Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the aut...more

Paperback, 320 pages

Published May 17th 2004 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published January 1st 2003)

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Jan 23, 2012 Dan Schwent rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: homework-from-the-ladies, nf, 2012, great-titles

Mary Roach writes about what happens when you donate your body to science. Hilarity ensues. Well, maybe not hilarity but it is a good dose of edutainment.

Way back around the time the earth's crust cooled and life spread across the planet, late 1994 or early 1995, I should think, I visited a chiropractic college with the rest of my Advanced Biology class. This trip was memorable to me for three reasons:
1) It was the first time I experienced an excruciating caffeine withdrawal headache
2) It was th...more Mary Roach writes about what happens when you donate your body to science. Hilarity ensues. Well, maybe not hilarity but it is a good dose of edutainment.

Way back around the time the earth's crust cooled and life spread across the planet, late 1994 or early 1995, I should think, I visited a chiropractic college with the rest of my Advanced Biology class. This trip was memorable to me for three reasons:
1) It was the first time I experienced an excruciating caffeine withdrawal headache
2) It was the first time I saw a human cadaver
3) I smoked five of my classmates playing pool in the student lounge at lunch.

Obviously, #2 is the one pertinent to this review, although I am still quite proud of #3. The cadaver I saw had its face covered and its skin looked shriveled, somewhat like beef jerky. My 17 year old mind briefly wondered where the man had come from before my hormone-fueled brain returned my attention to the nubile young ladies in the room. Anyway, let's get down to review business.

Mary Roach manages to take a subject that give many people the heebie-jeebies, donating one's remains to science, and makes it humorous at times. She covers such topics as learning surgical techniques via practicing on cadavers, human decomposition, ingesting human remains for medicinal purpose, using corpses in car crash tests, using cadavers for ballistics tests, crucifixion experiments, and even head transplants.

While it's not ideal meal-time reading, I didn't find it as stomach churning as some reviewers did. The talk of decomposition and quack remedies of the Middle ages were fascinating and I was really interested in the head and brain transplant experiments. Frankenstein's monster doesn't seem as unrealistic as it did yesterday.

Apparently, necrophilia is only illegal in 16 states. Imagine if that was one of your criteria when choosing a place to live. "Honey, I'd love to live in Florida but then we couldn't have our sexy parties..."

Actually, the funeral bits were also pretty enlightening. Did you know they have to suture the anus shut to keep nastiness from leaking out during a funeral? Or that dead people can fart from gas trapped in their intestines? Or that they insert special caps underneath the eyelids to keep them from suddenly opening? Fascinating stuff.

Stiff is a very interesting read for those interested in what happens when you donate your body to science, softened somewhat by Roach's sense of humor. Three easy stars.
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Mar 10, 2011 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, blinded-me-with-science, non-fiction, medical

Mary Roach details a lot of uses for human cadavers in this book, but she missed a major one. As Weekend At Bernies taught us, you can always use the corpse of your boss to scam your way into a free weekend at a beach house. That scientific research is all well and good, but there’s nothing in here at all about the best ways to simulate a life like corpse for your own selfish purposes. I learned more from Andrew McCarthy than I did reading this!

Ah, but seriously folks… This is the second book I’...more Mary Roach details a lot of uses for human cadavers in this book, but she missed a major one. As Weekend At Bernies taught us, you can always use the corpse of your boss to scam your way into a free weekend at a beach house. That scientific research is all well and good, but there’s nothing in here at all about the best ways to simulate a life like corpse for your own selfish purposes. I learned more from Andrew McCarthy than I did reading this!

Ah, but seriously folks… This is the second book I’ve read by Roach, and I admire the way that she can take touchy and gross subjects like corpses in this one or human feces in Packing for Mars, treat them seriously but still manage to keep a sense of humor about them. While she always has one eye on the science, she never uses it to shield out the normal human responses, and this allows her to provide a clear eyed account of the uses and disposal of the dead. (One of my favorite parts involved Roach asking someone how heads were removed from cadavers for surgical practices and was told that one woman in the lab removed them all. She later met the woman who actually did the chopping and Roach admits that all she could think was, “You cut off heads!!”)

So we get treated to a gory set of stories about how science uses corpses in a variety of ways including the study of impacts for the auto industry, how a brain-dead woman’s organs are removed by a transplant team, and a field of bodies left to rot for forensic research. We also get an overview of how science has used or misused bodies to advance both legitimate research and outright quackery in the past. There’s also a long section reflecting on the best way to dispose of human remains since traditional burials and cremations are costly, environmentally harmful and wasteful.

While I found this really interesting and enjoyed Roach’s writing and approach, there were times when this book completely disgusted me, and I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for gore. One section about the history of various mad scientists grafting severed heads of dogs and monkeys onto other dogs and monkeys and actually managing to keep them alive for some time was almost too much, and I kind of wished she would have left that chapter out.

Still, this was a really interesting book. I just wouldn’t try to eat a plate of lasagna while reading it. (less)

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Sep 26, 2007 Lissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

I bought this book when I first taught my class that has a foresnic anthropology component. I thought I could pick out a chapter of this book to assign to them, and it would be a nice, informative, lay-person account that would be entertaining, yet informational. However, due to time constraints, I never got around to reading the book. In that time, several people have borrowed and returned this book to me, so my copy is a bit tattered and dog-eared, as if I'd read it many times. I can safely sa...more I bought this book when I first taught my class that has a foresnic anthropology component. I thought I could pick out a chapter of this book to assign to them, and it would be a nice, informative, lay-person account that would be entertaining, yet informational. However, due to time constraints, I never got around to reading the book. In that time, several people have borrowed and returned this book to me, so my copy is a bit tattered and dog-eared, as if I'd read it many times. I can safely say, having read it once, that I will not be going back to read it again.

Stiff is a non-fiction, "science" writing book. Roach chronicles the different processes that happen to a human being after it dies. Each chapter tackles a different possible outcome for a person's corpse. She goes through chapters about anatomy labs, decay, crash-test and military trials (for safer vehicles, or more effective bullets), plane crashes, transplants, burial and cremation, and even cannibalism. The material for this book is endlessly fascinating and I feel like it has a lot of potential.

That being said, I find Mary Roach's style of writing intensely irritating, which took away from the overall effectiveness of the narrative. Much of her writing is sort of falsely funny, as if she is very intentially trying to inject humor into a situation through the use of ridiculous asides that do nothing to add information or further her point.

She also continually resorts to forced bathroom and genetalia jokes in order to articially infuse the book with humor. On many occasaions, she asks the scientists she interviews about what happens specifically to penile tissues. She then describes the patient if annoyed air that some of the scientists take with the assumption that the readers will all be tittering with her on her side. Well, I'm sorry, I'm with the scientists. I find that kind of thing immature and irrtating, like many of the jokes in this book. The last way that she commonly tries to inject humor into her writing is by pretending squeamishness for the sake of her readers.

What kills me about this is that there are parts of the book that are legitimateuly funny, where the humor is not forced but just found in the situation. There is a description of her first visit to a very small town in China that strong reminded me of some of my problems getting around in small towns in various African countries. There is also a funny commentary about a woman who volunteers to get multiple pap smears so that future ObGyns can practice (a job that I hope pays very. very. well). Additionally, there is some really interesting information in this book. I knew a lot about the use of bodies to determine what happened in plane crashes and the sort of things that happen in gross anatomy labs. But did you know that males and females have slightly different EEG profiles? And, after a heart transplant, those do not change. Also, did you know that there have been many proven ways to make riding in aircrafts safer, including shoulder harness seat belts, more emergency exits, sprinkler systems and side airbags for impact, but none of these are being implemented because the airlines don't want to have to incur the extra costs? There are plenty of little factoids like these that are quite interesting.

The bottom line for me was that there was simply not enough actual science in this science book. I've read plenty of popular science books that have managed to do a much better job walking the line between entertainment for the layperson and providing good information. As far as book that tell stories about cadavers, I would recommend any of the popular science books by William Bass or Douglas Ubelaker over this book as both fascinating and more informative.(less)

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Oct 25, 2008 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, social-theory, psychology

If you can’t cope with the idea of death without a hearty dose of euphemism – this probably isn’t going to be the book for you.

When I became an archivist at the City of Melbourne a very dear friend of mine became a technician at the city Morgue. I figured at the time he had watched a couple of episodes too many of Quincy M.E. and that he would find a normal job eventually. It is probably 15 years since I stopped being an archivist – my friend still cuts up dead people for a living.

A few weeks a...more If you can’t cope with the idea of death without a hearty dose of euphemism – this probably isn’t going to be the book for you.

When I became an archivist at the City of Melbourne a very dear friend of mine became a technician at the city Morgue. I figured at the time he had watched a couple of episodes too many of Quincy M.E. and that he would find a normal job eventually. It is probably 15 years since I stopped being an archivist – my friend still cuts up dead people for a living.

A few weeks after he started work I asked him how it was all going and he replied, “Good, yeah, I can even eat spaghetti now.” Sometimes it is best not to ask.

This book is a bit of a career guide for those of us who are post-life. There are a remarkable number of interesting things one can get up to after life. Many of these choices are presented in this book in an up-close-and-personal way that I particularly enjoyed.

I’m a fairly robust character, but there were many moments when I made involuntary noises during this book. The swallowed fly was a case in point and by far the worst. The noise I made was loud enough and distressing enough for my daughters to ask what was the matter – they didn’t ask again.

Part of my friend’s job involves removing people’s brains – this is also described in some detail here. The problem is that once the brain has been removed you can’t really pop it back from whence it came – so instead it is placed in the chest cavity. This means the head needs to be ‘packed’ and generally this is done with newspaper. One of the decisions made by those putting you back together again is which newspaper would seem most appropriate for you. (I assume in these days of obsessive Orwellian Double-Speak the corpses are called clients or customers or something equally ridiculous – although I wish it was after Waugh and they were called Loved Ones.) I really don’t mind what happens to me once I’m dead – I figure I’m going to be busy enough explaining to God why He doesn’t exist to be worried about what happens to my body – but I must admit that spending eternity with my head stuffed with a Murdoch rag does seem to be a punishment disproportionate to any crime I have committed whilst alive.
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Jan 09, 2008 Tung rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

In my nonfiction phase during the year, I grabbed this one and after finishing it, regretted its purchase. The book is about medical use of corpses and the human body, present-day and in the past. The subject matter is extremely interesting, and some of the methods, tests, and history behind human body experiments is worth the read. The book makes you want to be an organ donor, or want to donate your body to medical science. The problem is that the author is one of the WORST writers I have ever...more

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Jul 17, 2007 Athena rated it 2 of 5 stars

Well, I am half way through this and it has turned into a huge disappointment. What started out to be a funny depiction on what happens to donated cadavers, has taken a turn for the horrible. By the 6th or 7th chapter, the author showed what I can only equate to laziness and added commentary on subjects not pertaining to her once appreciated topic. I now find myself skipping over entire pages due to the lack of interest her writing presents and the tangents on which she goes; this I image done f...more

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May 28, 2008 Jill rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the morbidly curious

Recommended to Jill by: Metafilter.com

Stiff, by Mary Roach, is a book about human cadavers and the curious situations they find themselves in. Well, they didn't find themselves in any situation. They are dead bodies. But Mary Roach found them and this book is the result.

While reading this book I paused at halfway and actually asked myself if I wanted to bother finishing it. I have never found myself asking myself this before. I usually stick it out to the bloody, gruesome end. This book, however, just was not interesting. It was not...more Stiff, by Mary Roach, is a book about human cadavers and the curious situations they find themselves in. Well, they didn't find themselves in any situation. They are dead bodies. But Mary Roach found them and this book is the result.

While reading this book I paused at halfway and actually asked myself if I wanted to bother finishing it. I have never found myself asking myself this before. I usually stick it out to the bloody, gruesome end. This book, however, just was not interesting. It was not the hilarious screamfest that I was promised on Amazon reviews. It did not take me into worlds that I had yet to explore. It was simply this: a disappointment.

I had heard much about this book before I plucked it off the shelf at Barnes and Noble. It came highly recommended by MeFites and I had seen it referenced many different places around the internet. My first impression was that the author was a periodicals journalist trying to write a book. Each chapter is its own article, at least until she starts weakly trying to tie them together by adding things like, "But in the next chapter, we see how dead bodies really do push up daisies," at the end of chapters. Clearly an afterthought.

Also, it may be due to the success of the book when it was initially published, but it just seems to me that almost every topic covered in the book has been recently covered on television or in magazines. Perhaps I read about these things in college. I certainly don't seek out interesting tidbits about cadavers, yet somehow, from somewhere, I was familiar with almost every chapter's subject.

This book is not funny. I cannot imagine anyone laughing out loud to this book. It's not that I can't laugh at death or dead people or the situations, it's just that the author tries too hard. The humor is forced. It's not natural. It's like she spent hours trying to describe a lab tech in a funny way. It falls flat. Additionally, the author inserts herself into the action and records her own interviews, including awkward attempts at humor with very serious people. It just makes you cringe and you almost feel embarrassed for her.

The end of the book couldn't have come fast enough. Toward the end, she morbidly tries to top each chapter with more disgusting details, more gross descriptions and more sick and twisted happenings. It begins to overpower the little bit of grace and dignity the book started out with. It's almost as if the publishers realized this, because odd, tiny rants about the dignity of deceased persons and the way people handle them are awkwardly inserted into the text. It gets repetitive.

In the end, I just plain didn't enjoy this book. The author and her injected awkward humor and odd opinions annoyed me. The book seemed unpolished. Nothing seemed new and different about it.

It was just a disappointment.
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Oct 25, 2009 Hayes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bc-bookring, read-in-2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I’m going to mark this one using the method that I use to mark my students’ essays, because I feel that Stiff is an essay in the truest sense of the word. [The word “essay” comes from the French essayer "to try" or "to attempt", as in: to attempt to put your thoughts into writing, or to try to bring someone around to your way of thinking.]:

I award 5 points for structure (how the piece is formulated, how the paragraphs/chapters are organized, how everything hangs together “physically”);
5 points

...more

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Nov 08, 2008 Laurel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: death-and-social-work

This book is amusing, though after the first few chapters a little boring. I was sufficiently grossed out by the chapter regarding human decomposition, and the bit about the embalming process and how funeral homes prepare the body was particularly interesting to me when I found myself sitting at a wake the evening after reading it. I couldn't stop thinking about how the dearly departed's eyelids were held down by a little disk that pinned into his eyeball so the lids wouldn't pop open.

I'm not a...more

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Feb 19, 2008 Lisa Nelson rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone without a weak stomach

Recommended to Lisa by: Erin

Shelves: non-fiction

I usually don't laugh out loud when I read books, but this book had serveral passages that had me giggling. Also, I don't get, "Grossed out," very often, but I had to put this book down once while I was reading and eating lunch. This book has so many interesting tidbits on what happens to our bodies after we die. I was amazed and facinated by the history and current research being done on human cadavars. My parents, much to their children's objections decided long ago to be cremated when the tim...more

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Dec 19, 2012 Amy or "Ames" rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, laugh-out-loud, library-books, read-in-2012, favourites, buy-now, death-reapers-zombies, psychology, m-tbr, health-physical

Never have my Western morals, pre-conceptions and beliefs been more challenged than when reading Stiff. No one wants to consider their own mortality and make any arrangements for the afterlives of their bodies. Being confronted with the cold hard reality of nature, science and history of death was an uncomfortable, disgusting and enlightening experience. Those of a delicate disposition and strong religious belief will find this a particularly difficult and offensive read. But honestly, they shou...more

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May 11, 2009 Fiona rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Fiona by: TNBBC

Shelves: library-book, non-fiction, 2008, friend-recommendation, series, favourites

I'd never heard about this book before until it came up within a non-book related discussion topic in a group here on GoodReads. Strange how some books just pop out at you. Reading about cadavers - dead bodies, interested my morbid fascination with the dead and death.

She writes sensitively, but humorously about what happens to you when you die. If you are considering donating organs or your whole body to science - like I was before even picking this book up, curious, or a family member wants to...more I'd never heard about this book before until it came up within a non-book related discussion topic in a group here on GoodReads. Strange how some books just pop out at you. Reading about cadavers - dead bodies, interested my morbid fascination with the dead and death.

She writes sensitively, but humorously about what happens to you when you die. If you are considering donating organs or your whole body to science - like I was before even picking this book up, curious, or a family member wants to do this and you want to know more - this is a good book to read.

It tells you the history of the dead body - how once upon a time people were afraid of being buried alive, the history of how cadavers were once acquired. The usefulness of cadavers and how they have been used. Not just for medicine, but also in testing and improving the saftey of cars, and also by the armed forces testing for other things too.

Roach attempts to reduce the stigma that is sometimes built up over the uses of cadavers. It got me thinking, how we seem to be more worried over how we treat the dead then we do the living. We would rather test on a live animal then an already dead, and much more reliable human body part. I think she does this well, without coming across as overly preachy. But maybe that is because I already agree with her.

Death is not the end. It has always seemed to me a waste to just die and then get loaded into a furnace to be cremated. I do not want to be cremated. I want to donate my organs to those who need them.

I quote this paragraph, because I think it really sums up how I feel - about donating organs and people who oppose it.

"It is astounding to me, and achingly sad, that with eighty thousand people on the waiting list for donated hearts and livers and kidneys, with sixteen a day dying there on that list, that more then half of the people in the position H's family was in will say no, will choose to burn those organs or let them rot. We abide the surgeon's scalpel to save our own lives, out loved ones' lives, but not to save a stranger's life. H has no heart, but heartless is the last thing you'd call her." (p. 195)

Also, if I do not end up donating the rest of my body to science, then I want to become human compost. I'd never heard of that before this book, but it appeals to me - better then just simply being buried - better to think that a tree or a plant will use my body to fertilise it's flowers and I can become one with nature - go back to the earth instead of being burnt up into useless ashes.

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Nov 30, 2008 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone interested in human cadavers

Recommended to Linda by: Kathy

Thinking of donating your body to science? Well, this book might make you want to reconsider. In either direction, mind you. As it seems, being a corpse doesn't necessarily have to be boring -- and this book is all about explaining how and why.

Okay, so I don't know what's more disturbing -- the book itself, or the fact that I'm enjoying it so much. It's surely not the kind of book you want to be reading next to a Catholic family (or any family) on the airport (trust me on this one)(come to think...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Mindy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-book, dead-people, math-and-science, 600s, non-fiction, body-parts

Mary Roach didn't strike me as funny or witty, just annoying. She's like the wise ass class clown in the back row, heckling the teacher and distracting everyone from an otherwise fairly decent lecture. Only she's supposed to be the teacher, too. What was her point? To talk about dead bodies or impress herself with her own juvenile jokes?

On a professional note, Roach seems awfully distrustful of librarians. Does she really think the circ clerk at a medical library thinks she's freaky for checkin...more

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Sep 26, 2007 Deanna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2007

Those curious or brave enough to find out what really happens to a body that is donated to the scientific community can do so with this book. Dissection in medical anatomy classes is about the least bizarre of the purposes that science has devised. Mostly dealing with such contemporary uses such as stand-ins for crash-test dummies, Roach also pulls together considerable historical and background information. Bodies are divided into types, including "beating-heart" cadavers for organ transplants,...more

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Jul 01, 2007 Edward Horne rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: curious folks looking to expand their knowledge

A couple of months ago, I went to an exhibit in Dallas called BodyWorlds. They used a process called plastination (actually covered in this book) to help preserve a body from decaying - this assisted in the study of anatomy. In the BodyWorlds exhibit, they rigged the various cadavers in various poses to highlight different body systems. The exhibit charged my thoughts about the whole concept of donating oneself to science and when a friend picked up this book at the airport book store, I decided...more A couple of months ago, I went to an exhibit in Dallas called BodyWorlds. They used a process called plastination (actually covered in this book) to help preserve a body from decaying - this assisted in the study of anatomy. In the BodyWorlds exhibit, they rigged the various cadavers in various poses to highlight different body systems. The exhibit charged my thoughts about the whole concept of donating oneself to science and when a friend picked up this book at the airport book store, I decided to give it a try.

The tagline to Stiff (The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers) is a little bit of a misnomer since only about half of the book really focuses on the history and uses of cadavers. The other half of the book talks about the how people handle their corpses after their demise.

The standard cadaver uses in spare body parts and medical research, but a wide variety of OTHER uses is also covered - some quite shocking. For me, the most disturbing use of cadavers had to be the body decomposition studies and the sample crucifixions. Human decay research (where bodies are left in a field under various conditions to analyze how the body decomposes) is crucial in assisting authorities in determining time of death - an often vital clue in a murder case. To me, it was just a little unseemly that my body would be left out to rot in a field - no matter what benefits it might afford. I'll have to say that this book has really opened my eyes about what it really means to "donate your body to science".

That one thing that REALLY struck me in this book was the gross objectification of human corpses. In some instances, this objectification is necessary. The best example cited in the book was the use of cadavers for medical research - especially with doctors practicing new surgery techniques (I sure would hate to be a doctor's 1st crack at a facelift or tripe-bypass!) In other cases, this objectification was bizarre and macabre. It's almost like over the centuries that people view corpses as not the final remnants of a living being which should be honored, but almost as refuse that can be picked over for the best scraps. Makes you want to make sure that your eventual coffin has a huge padlock on it with a wide variety of booby traps. Take your best shot at taking my leg bones grave robbers!(less)

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May 27, 2007 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Human bodies. Dead human bodies. This subject is not usually the most pleasant of conversation topics in any situation. However, author Mary Roach approaches this normally disturbing topic with enthusiasm and crafts a book that manages to be intriguing, gripping, gruesome, and yet hilarious at the same time. In the Alex Award winning book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, readers will learn how scientists have used human cadavers for over 2,000 years to accomplish a variety breakthroug...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Re-read Aug2012
Group read & it has been a while. Wow, right out of the gate. Roach manages to be respectful yet humorous & insightful all at the same time. The first chapter begins with a training session for plastic surgeons who learn new procedures by working on cadaver heads & she follows up with a brief history on doctors getting corpses to learn on. It's just fantastic.

Original review from when I joined GR, read date end of 2005, early 2006

Not the best thing to read while eatin...more

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Aug 27, 2007 Lisa Vegan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who's interested in science, including those who have no idea how interesting it can be

Shelves: reviewed, nature, non-fiction, science, gr-author

This is the most hilarious book about human cadavers that I’ve ever read. Actually, this might be the only book dedicated to describing what happens to human bodies after death that I’ve ever read. I felt squeamish reading during many, many parts, but it was worth it. It was too fascinating to not keep reading. She’s a good writer and this is a unique book. I plan to be cremated but if I were wealthy, have to say the part on composting was intriguing. Eager to read more from her.

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Apr 19, 2007 Mer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fellow gross-out enthusiasts, morbid optimists

Shelves: spookylicious

Simultaneously very respectful of the delicate subject, and rip-roaringly funny.

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Apr 08, 2009 george rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: from-paperbackswap, grown-up-books, read-in-2009

This book is just plain awesome. Ever wanted to know anything about cadavers? This is the book for you. You will probably even find out way more than you wanted to. You find out what may happen to you if you donate your body to science (it can be way more interesting than a boring old dissection lab, let me tell you); what happens during the embalming process (I'm skipping that myself), cremation, and the future (maybe?) of disposing of cadavers; what can happen in a plane crash; and what exactl...more This book is just plain awesome. Ever wanted to know anything about cadavers? This is the book for you. You will probably even find out way more than you wanted to. You find out what may happen to you if you donate your body to science (it can be way more interesting than a boring old dissection lab, let me tell you); what happens during the embalming process (I'm skipping that myself), cremation, and the future (maybe?) of disposing of cadavers; what can happen in a plane crash; and what exactly a cadaver's role in bullets and bombs really is. If nothing else, the book will force you to think about what you want to happen to your body after you've exited it (Roach has much more tact and respect than I do).

I found this to be absolutely fascinating. If I hadn't have decided weeks before what to do with my body after I'm gone, I probably would have gone for donating it to science after reading this. It can really be put to good use for countless others. Unfortunately for science I discovered this awesome company called Eternal Reefs that puts you in the ocean. Wait, it gets better: you're cremated, then your family can travel down (or over, depending on your starting location) to Florida and mix up your remains with some cement (my mom has already told me that if I go first, she's not doing the mixing herself, but will gladly watch the company do it--something they not only allow, but encourage), then the cement is put into a mold to create a man-made reef (complete with a plaque that states you name and maybe a bit more info), and then later they cart the reef to one of their authorized spots and have a viewing day where the families get to view the reef, take pictures, etc., then the next day they charter a boat and all your family and friends can go out and watch them drop your reef into the ocean. Cool, right? Supposedly they last forever. I'm not naive enough to believe that, but I know that it'll last a hell of a lot longer than most graves; and it has the ecological benefit of helping preserve the ocean and its wildlife. My mom's doing it too. I'm more excited about it than I should be seeing as it can't be done until after I've kicked it.

So back to the book--I found it to be really great and chock full of fun facts that my family and co-workers really wished I kept to myself. I don't get grossed out often, but if you have a weak stomach, you may have a few problems getting through this one (trust me, I'm very glad that I decided to skip the cannibalism chapter during lunch and come back long after I had any feeling of food remaining in my tummy). Really great read.(less)

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Jan 14, 2009 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Folks curious about odd stuff, tolerant of goof-ball humor, and not too squeamish.

Shelves: non-fiction

Opening paragraph:

The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much happens, and nothing is expected of you.

If you read this book, you will undoubtedly have many "ick" moments (especially in the chapter about eating the dead, but there's also that footnote about necrophilia on page 43...), but you should have even more laugh-out-loud moment, and maybe...more

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Jan 28, 2008 sage rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, horror, reviewed

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 20, 2007 Marsena Dufresne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: absolutely_fabulous

I absolutely could not put this book down. A hilarious yet somehow respectful exploration of what happens to our bodies once we're dead. Roach takes her inquisitive mind to places it wouldn't occur to me to go, way past normal burial and cremation to medical school anatomy labs, human crash test dummies, cannibalism, and the decapitated heads that plastic surgeons use for practice...and she makes me laugh every step of the way.

In the chapter, "How To Know if You're Dead:" Roach's exploration of...more

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Dec 21, 2009 Cami rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone with a steel stomach

Shelves: science-and-nature

This book is seriously hard to put down. I'm sure it's a combination of the writer's amusing prose as well as a generous helping of morbid curiosity on my part.
I choose to quote here author Caleb Carr (listed on the book's jacket) because I feel he sums it up well: "As fascinating as it is funny, as sensitive as it is probing, Mary Roach's Stiff is above all an important account of how we treat the dead--literally. The research is admirable, the anedotes carefully chosen, and the prose lively."
W...more

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Dec 13, 2007 Mairi rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Not the book I wanted it to be. I heard funny. I heard informative. I heard compelling. I got a book I couldn't wait to put down and I don't think I cracked a grin even once. To my knowledge, it wasn't ever inaccurate but Roach's conversational writing tone was jarring at times and her tangents made it hard to care what she was going to cover next. Of course, I read it shortly after reading Christine Quigley's The Corpse: A History which actually was brilliant so I might've put the bar a little...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Angie by: Kevin Lanahan

Shelves: nonfiction

Our bodies can go through a lot when we are dead and Mary Roach discusses it all. This book takes a look at the life of the human cadaver. Roach tells us what happens when you donate your body to science (you are probably going to be used for surgery practice), how bodies are used for crash test dummies, head transplants, crucifixion studies, human composting and so much more. The life of the human cadaver is fascinating, often gross, but never boring. I can say the same thing about this book. N...more

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Jul 13, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

I occasionally preface a book review, as such, on the basis of commuter tips (“this was a lovely diversion from an adjacent, ill-bathed bus neighbor” - that type of thing that, incidentally, often leads to a “but”). Here, might I offer some travel advice? If you find yourself in a Mexican resort, anticipating a poolside lunch “con guacamole” while perhaps a bit queasy from trying to beat the all-inclusive system via beverages the previous evening, you might not want read this book until safely t...more I occasionally preface a book review, as such, on the basis of commuter tips (“this was a lovely diversion from an adjacent, ill-bathed bus neighbor” - that type of thing that, incidentally, often leads to a “but”). Here, might I offer some travel advice? If you find yourself in a Mexican resort, anticipating a poolside lunch “con guacamole” while perhaps a bit queasy from trying to beat the all-inclusive system via beverages the previous evening, you might not want read this book until safely through customs days later. The part covering severed heads utilized for, gasp, plastic surgery practice finally did me in just before fajitas.

All in all this is an enjoyable book - something like 49 ways to use a cadaver. With the often macabre, occasionally bizarre content, Roach levels a necessary sense of humor and sensitivity at the subject matter. She’s, I guess, cordial to corpses and decent to “decendents” (the proper trade term for the deceased as in “decadents leaving property to decendents.” You don’t want to know what “frothy purge” means). From the early days of a dearth of dead people for research - and the accompanying trade in grave robbing - and those heady years of the guillotine, to the blood transfusions (Kervorkian’s first, and perhaps last, North American use of cadaver blood in the early sixties), forensic science (sensing a future tourist destination in Knoxville), limbless crash test cadavers, gardening compost, and other productive uses of donor bodies these days, this book is “Muy interesante,” as one might say in Mexico. One might also exclaim that after being vomited on at midnight from a fifth floor balcony… but that’s for another review…

Perhaps my favorite anecdotes revolved around how blood, gallstones, a “tincture” of human navel, and so forth have been used to purportedly combat various ailments from ancient China to more recent eras and closer proximity (respectively epilepsy, hiccups, and sore throat in case you were wondering). Additional highlights include recommendations to gorge on parts of mummified folk to contend with palsy or vertigo OR EVEN bruises as recently as about a century ago! Must have been some bruise. I appreciate the quote from the editor of the Merck Manual stating it wasn’t until after 1920 or so that “the average patient with the average illness seeing the average physician came off better for the encounter.” The various panaceas credited to excrement throughout the centuries read like a Who’s’ Who of known medical conditions. On a related subject, I don’t know if I’ll look at marshmallows, caramels, gummi bears, sports drinks, or ice cream the same way again (be sure to read the footnotes).

At any rate - assuming the two of you who may read this evaluation are interested in this subject or this author - I can’t imagine a better take on this stuff that would be geared towards the non-morticians among us. Beyond merely a sideshow-like catalogue of post-life opportunities, Roach’s master narrative is about the detachment of one’s “spirit” from one’s remains after brain function has ceased. Thus certain hang-ups about institutionally prescribed practices of proper interment - most obviously notions that the body should be deposited intact - are falsely idyllic and tend to preclude what just might be the best destination for one’s corpse. In the author’s own mellifluous words,

When you get right down to it, there is no dignified way to go, be it decomposition, incineration, dissection, tissue digestion, or composting. They’re all, bottom line, a little disagreeable.

Roach also admits that there’s a possible unsavoriness in one’s remains being flung into a wall at 60 mph as a crash-test cadaver (or, more often, “a controlled impacting device… directed at it.” The use of “it” representing the aforementioned detachment of “person” from “corpse”). A donated cadaver might be laid out in a grassy lawn in Tennessee (lovely) to be inspected at various intervals for levels of decay, larvae infestation, etc. (not so lovely) for forensic purposes. Most of us think that donating one’s remains to “science” means a simple reuse or study of one’s organs or, in the author’s case, one’s skeleton possibly being displayed in a high school classroom somewhere. Those are all plastic nowadays and the diversity of body reuse purposes is apparently quite high. The point being that, despite these more disagreeable uses, all hopefully serves a purpose for some greater good. Perhaps I could imagine physical reutilization as fertilizer so long as it doesn’t result in more hydrogenated corn syrup. Perhaps I’ll leave that to my survivors as the author advises.

Great book but, again, consider the dining options in your immediate future before diving in to this one.
(less)

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Sep 20, 2011 E rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sciences

Even if this stuff makes you squirm - perhaps especially if it makes you squirm - you should read a book like this. Because both ignorance and the fear of death are responsible for countless acts of cruelty throughout human history. Ignorance sure is bliss, but it steps on everyone else's toes. Death sure is scary, but no one evades it. The list of things you don't want to know about should be kept as short as possible.

Yes, I skimmed through the passages about the various medicinal uses of excr...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, humor, medicine

Everything about corpse disposal and their uses which you never thought to ask about or were afraid to. Nice collision of logical and informative presentation with wry personal reactions to absurd, grisly, or surprising twists. Quite an entertaining model for combining of reportage and serious scientific journalism. I liked the sections on history and future of cadaver use for anatomy education and for crash tests. The chapter on the Swedish push for composting of bodies as a cheaper and greener...more

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About Mary Roach

Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Salon, GQ, Vogue, and the New York Times Magazine. She lives in Oakland, California.

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The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011

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“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you. ” — 98 people liked it

“It is astounding to me, and achingly sad, that with eighty thousand people on the waiting list for donated hearts and livers and kidneys, with sixteen a day dying there on that list, that more then half of the people in the position H's family was in will say no, will choose to burn those organs or let them rot. We abide the surgeon's scalpel to save our own lives, out loved ones' lives, but not to save a stranger's life. H has no heart, but heartless is the last thing you'd call her.” — 40 people liked it

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