The Last Word: The New York Times Book of Obituaries and Farewells : A Celebration of Unusual Lives

by Marvin Siegel (Editor)

A fascinating compilation of one hundred of the most colorful, entertaining, and touching obituaries that have appeared in the New York Times over the last few years ranges from Julian Hill, the inventor of nylon, to a quiet man who braved the hostility of racists to integrate the University of Georgia.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Death

432 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1997

Reviews

[Paul Secor · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some well written obituaries to be found in this collection, ranging from the famous - New Yorker writer, Joseph Mitchell, Orville Redenbacher, Rudolf Walter Wanderone, who, picking up on the success of The Hustler, reinvented himself as Minnesota Fats - to people who were less famous but led interesting lives.

I should mention my two favorite obituaries in this collection: Allan G. Odell, "America's Roadside Poet", who developed a roadside advertising campaign of rhyming jingles for Burma Shave. I recall seeing those signs when I was a youngster and loved them because they took away some of the boredom of being in a car for what seemed like long drives (though they were probably only long in my mind).
Mr. Odell devised a set of six small sequential signs spaced one hundred feet apart, five of which carried one line of a rhyme. The sixth sign carried the company's logo and the name Burma-Shave.
Herewith a couple of examples:

Henry the Eighth
Sure Had
Trouble
Short-Term Wives
long-Term Stubble
Burma-Shave

Pity all
The mighty Caesars
They pulled
Each whisker out
With Tweezers
Burma-Shave

An interesting addendum to Mr. Odell's obituary - in 1953, Vladimir Nabokov submitted (under his wife's name) a jingle to Burma-Shave for their consideration:

He passed two cars
then five
then seven
and then he beat
them all to heaven

Vladimir didn't make the cut.

My favorite obituary in this collection is The Green Guerrilla - Fred Rosenstiel. It reads like a poignant short story:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/16/obi...
Mr. Rosenstiel's obituary was written by Robert McG Thomas Jr., the master obituary writer. It's also included in a collection of obituaries which Mr. Thomas wrote, 52 McG's.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7....
I recommend 52 McG's. highly to anyone interested in the art of writing obituaries - and I do believe that there is an art involved in writing them. Read that book first. Then you may want to try this one.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating! Reading. The Last Word: The New York Times Book of Obituaries and Farewells: A Celebration of Unusual Lives edited by Marvin Siegel I came across some unbelievable stories of really incredible people. Finding a MIA fighter pilot from WWII in the waters of the Zuider Zee and the all the people who came to see the pilot’s hearse pass by in 1996; a 7 year old female private pilot who was making a cross-country flight and after landing in Cheyenne, Wyoming,she, her father, and her flight instructor took off in a thunderstorm and crashed nose first in a street killing all three. So many people left flowers and stuffed animals to the young girl. Why did they take off in a thunderstorm? I discovered my alma mater (college) that put on a special Conference for a week with many special speakers such as Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist whom I met stopped this fabulous conference in 1994 because it did not relate to the students anymore. World Affairs ??? When reading about this conference, I discovered information about the man who was to put it together for 1 year and it lasted 47. Special people in many different fields such as music, business, society, aviation, entertainment and many more! Highly recommended!!

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a series of short essays that function as Lay's potato chips for the reader. Once you start, you keep turning pages. The obituaries deliberately eschew the famous (there are people you have heard of, like the delightful Wrong Way Corrigan, but they weren't really celebrities at the time of their deaths). None of them are Kardashian-type. All of them achieved something, even if it was something to be elegantly skewered by the obituary writer.

Many of them were Jews who emigrated to the United States either right after World War I, right before it, or right after the Holocaust, and if you take away anything from their obituaries --- and honestly, from almost all of the lives chronicled in the book --- it is that what makes an American is his/her ability to get the job done as Lin Manuel Miranda might say. They founded restaurants, they invented gadgets, they raised money for diseases (0ne of my favorite pieces is the woman who fell into philanthropic fundraising for the March of Dimes, and six decades later was riding around vans doing the same thing for AIDS victims because, damn it, someone needed to do it). Many of them are doctors who toiled to eliminate suffering. Some were teachers. All lead interesting lives, and are summed up as people who mattered.

If the topic of the book seems depressing to you as a potential reader, face it, we're all going to wind up dead. These obituaries are about what it means to be alive until we get there, and as such the book is brilliant both in the idea and execution. I was exhilarated when I finished it. You will be too.

Highly recommend.

[Fran Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about, as the title says "a celebration of unusual lives", unusual but interesting lives. This included men such as Meyer Michael Greenberg who spent his weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas handing out warm gloves and a handshake to homeless people. It also includes Allan G. Odell, America's Roadside Poet, who developed the advertising campaign of rhyming jingles for Burma Shave. Elaine Whitelaw was tapped by President Franklin Roosevelt to join a committee to raise money for the March of Dimes, an organization to fight the deadly disease of polio. She recognized the potential of middle class volunteers to collect money to fund programs and research. She used this same approach for other charities. She spent nights in a Planned Parenthood van counseling women about drug use and AIDS on the streets in the Bronx and helped serve hot meals to hungry women and children while wearing her Adolfo suits and Ferragamo shoes.

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating collection of obituaries from the New York Times. Although these appeared at the time of the subjects' deaths, I can't imagine a book more full of life. All kinds of people: the guy who wrote "Louie, Louie"; the man who developed Burma Shave's roadside signs; a woman who knit more than 40,000 pairs of mittens for others; the doctor who realized that cold water was a better treatment for burns than grease; the man who founded the Simplicity pattern company; Lewis B. Puller, Jr., former Marine who was the son of "Chesty" Puller and wrote about the hell he endured in Vietnam and after; writer Joseph Mitchell; fashion designer Molly Parnis; Jerrie Siegel, creator of Superman; and on and on, including the recipe for Junior's cheesecake.

Obviously, I could go on and on, but you should just read it. As usual, true stories are more improbable and interesting than fiction.

There are several essays at the end about Jessica Dubroff, the seven-year-old girl who died in 1996 trying to become the youngest cross-country pilot. I'd forgotten that story and how everything about it enraged me. Now I wonder how her family is doing, and what happened to her sister and brother.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of approximately ninety obituaries plus additional articles of many different kinds of people. Most are positive, leaving the reader with a feeling that the person had a good run or accomplished something. Some are heart-wrenching, such as the obituary for seven-year-old pilot Jessica Dubroff, who died in a plane crash with her father and flight instructor after taking off in bad weather while trying to fly across the country.

The selection may be somewhat limited in scope and time, but the book also presents a slice of humanity that gives pause for thought.

Please read the full review here .

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some interesting pieces and some touching ones. I like getting to know people's stories, so I liked this collection of obits.

[João Barros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sobretudo para jornalistas, um livro indispensável.

[Sergio Maduro]

Obituários do NYT

[Katie Buchholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while because I only picked it up every so often and read a few of the entries. I really enjoyed learning about people who were not famous but made an impact of many.

[Beatriz Taroco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não sabia que eu precisava ler um livro de obituários até ler um livro de obituários

[Marilynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oddly life-affirming and gorgeous.

[Morna Crites-Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable book. I didn't want it to end - haha.