The Big Book of the Dead

by Marion Winik

Marion Winik is esteemed for bringing humor and wit to that most unavoidable of subjects: death. At last, Winik's critically acclaimed, cult favorites Glen Rock and Baltimore Book of the Dead have been carefully combined in their proper order, revealing more clearly than ever before the character hidden throughout these stories: Winik herself. In The Big Book of the Dead, Winik arranges her arresting portraits of the dead chronologically, spanning "Friends of My Youth, Mostly in New Jersey 1958-1978," "The Austin Years, Including New Orleans 1977-2009," "We Were Ten Years in Pennsylvania 1999-2009," and "Love in the Time of Baltimore 2009-2018." Featuring twelve additional vignettes-including remembrances of the victims of the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting and Philip Roth, The Big Book of the Dead continues Winik's work as an empathic chronicler of life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Short Stories, Audiobook, Humor

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2019

About the author

Longtime All Things Considered commentator Marion Winik is the author of First Comes Love, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead and seven other books. The Baltimore Book of the Dead is forthcoming from Counterpoint this fall. Her award-winning column on BaltimoreFishbowl.com appears monthly, and her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun and elsewhere. She is the host of The Weekly Reader radio show and podcast and reviews books for Newsday, People, and Kirkus Review. She is a board member of the National Book Critics Circle and a professor in the MFA program at the University of Baltimore. More info at marionwinik.com.

Reviews

[Carlton Phelps · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hate to give the ending away, but everyone dies.
Sound depressing doesn't it? Well in most ways it is, but it is a fascinating look at Ms. Winik's friends that have passed as well as people she was acquainted with.
Keep an open mind as you read the stories and you may find them heartwarming. Getting to know a little about the people who have died.

[Jennifer Chenoweth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to Marion Winik's book The Big Book of the Dead on Audible. It is really great to hear her unique voice reading her amazing written language. She writes about people she has known who have affected her life who have died. About grief, but really about love, and seeing people, and recognizing how they affect us. In this moment (Spring 2020) of really being disappointed with the bigger picture of humanity, it is like grieving for our culture with a dear friend, a sister, and being somehow, glad for the grief. I highly recommend listening to her/the book right now for approaching the idea that everyone we love, admire, grudge, or even hate, will die. When my family got together at the dinner table last night, I loved everybody more fully, and was grateful, even for the pain of loss. Thank you Marion for not being afraid to love or to remember with such textured detail and sharing it with us. The book is an ode to our American culture because its the people who create culture through families, communities, commonalities, writing, arts.

[JZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, shit! After reading the blurb on LitHub, recommending funny books for the duration, I read this for some comic relief. This ain't it.

Let me tell you, there are a few funny things here, but this is basically a list of obituaries that are different from the usual. They tell the truth about the death, the life, and the path there. And, often, the people left behind are drifting through, too.

They are wonderful stories about appreciating everyone's contribution to our lives, and how we choose to remember them, thanking them for the experience. Forgiveness abounds on each page.

A wonderful read, but, oddly, that article seems to have been removed from LitHub. Funny.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read through this like a poetry collection - piece by piece. A beautiful homage to the people that made up Winik’s life and what I thought of as highly original. Some parts resonated more with me than others, but all were interesting

[Jillian Corda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautifully written. It feels like a celebration of life, while taking a sober look at death. I have already recommended to many of my friends to read!

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I thought this was an excellent premise at first, a fter reading all 289 pages of death after death, I decided this book was a little too much for me. I felt incredibly sad and needed a break. I think I will go read another book with a sentient octopus in it to make myself feel better.

[Ghazal Doure · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you are dealing with grief, there is no other person, no matter how much they love you, that can help. Not even distract you for an hour.
The only people I could turn to were those who are living it; who are carrying this pain around, in different forms.
Reading these pages, for the first time in my life, I realized how intertwined life and death are. How this could be the one deep thing that all of us will have in common at some point, grief.

Marion Winik writes beautifully. Time flies when you read her work, even if it's the darkest time of your life.
I'm so happy I accidentally found this book in Colleg Park's Busboys and Poets' bookshelves.

[Dennis Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished The Big Book Of The Dead by Marion Winik, a short book about the most uncomfortable of subjects, death. The book details death portraits of her family, friends, acquaintances and others. I found the portraits, poignant, humorous, very sad, in short a broad range of reaction. Marion Winik is a long time contributor to All Things Considered and a brilliant writer in my estimation.

[Patricia]

Winik is a master of the short form or micro-essay. She pack so much into 400 words that I felt as if I had a clear picture of every person she included. This is not the best bed time reading, though that's exactly when I read these pieces. I had a strange, compelling impulse to read just one more even though every single story is about someone who has died. Each time I finally laid the book down and turned out the light, the energy of the stories entered my dreams with visitations from my dead. The thing is, I found I actually knew someone who was now dead whose story resembled those Winick told. The impact was to not only dream about these people but to honor them as Winick does with each of her perceptively detailed pieces.

The Big Book of the Dead is not an upbeat read, but it is satisfying in surprising and unexpected ways. She made me want to not only think about the people in my life who have died but to pay homage to them by writing about them. If only I had Wininik's talent for grabbing the best anecdote, image, or bit of conversation, I'd start immediately.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Several years ago I read the Baltimore Book of the Dead, and liked it enough to put this on my to-read list. It is a bit overwhelming unless read slowly.

Winik writes small vignettes of people she has known who have died. These vignettes are usually just two pages, and focus on some key element of their life rather than the nitty gritty details. In most of them (except a few celebrities) she refers to the departed by a descriptor rather than their name, for privacy sake. The chapters run the gamut from close family to people like her childhood dentist, or a beloved pet. She has had a wide ranging life and has met a lot of people. The hardest section to read for me was the self destructive period when she was doing drugs, as many of the deaths were drug related. It was also difficult to read when she talked about children and young people who have died.

This book has prompted me to mentally write stories of how I remember people have passed. It seems a way of honoring their essence and how they have impacted your life. Perhaps I will write a few myself.

[Chris Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winik has a keen memory and a sense of fairness ribboned with true affection and kindness.

Each of these brief, rich memories, take only a couple of minutes of your time each but will stay with you for a very long time.

Whether it’s the loss of a stillborn child, a centenarian, a teen, or a lifelong friend, she brings them to life again, just to share them with you. And oh, what a great gift!

I have both read and listened to her books, and if you have an opportunity to listen to her narration, DO IT. That flash of humor, the drawl of an accent, the genuine affection embued in her voice after decades or even just a brief time — so worth it.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir in the form of very brief comments about people she’s known who have died. She’s led a very complicated life (a former druggie; married and a parent with the doomed love of her life, a gay man; teacher, writer) so the range of people she memorializes is vast. I’d love to meet her some day.

Read, a little too briskly, by the author.

[Jeffrey Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this variously entertaining, moving, appalling, heartbreaking, funny, and tragic book, author Marion Winik presents a list of the people (and a few dogs) she’s known in her life who have died and writes brief vignettes about who they were and what they meant to her. The stories are always captivating, whether they make you laugh out loud, cringe, or weep.

[Lily]

A very interesting way to tell one's own life story (through vignettes of all the people the author has known who died), but after awhile it became too depressing and morbid for me. Especially now during this pandemic shelter-in-place!

[Carole Duff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard Marion Winik read from The Big Book of the Dead at HippoCamp 2021 then purchased the book. A collection of two-page gems. Sad and tragic. Wise and hilarious. In writing about the dead, Winik teaches writers about craft and all of us about living.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interestingly, I enjoyed this book less than I had the original two books that make it up. But that may be because I listen to this one, and read the other two. I think reading gives more time for reflection perhaps.

[Barbara Wilgus · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know the epitaph, “may their memory be a blessing”? That’s exactly what this book is, blessing after blessing after blessing. I think it was lovely, and it inspires me to write down short memories when friends and loved ones die, as more and more will in the days and years to come.

[Summer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book about nothing, really. This sounded intriguing but failed. Little time spent on the killer, more time on family drama. The killer was fascinating, and his background was even more so. Pity it became secondary to everything else.

[JuniorCocoa · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF. Not my thing.

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't regret reading this book, but I kind of wish that I hadn't. I don't enjoy closing a book and feeling depressed.

[Vivienne Strauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't stop reading this - one moving obituary after another. Some tinged with a bit of humor, many left me teary-eyed.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

yet even in the sun's
own land
anyone who lives
will suffer

[Emma Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful random find from a free little library.

Simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring, reminding me to take control of what I can before the uncontrollable takes over…

[Wendy Stover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three things I enjoy reading the most are poetry, memoirs, and obituaries. With this book you get all of those.

[Dawn Hansbarger · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was awful!!!! Too many characters and she never really developed then. It was written in a “manic style”, jumped around and just didn’t go together or flow well at all! I actually hated it.