Yours Truly: An Obituary Writer's Guide to Telling Your Story

by James R. Hagerty

In a surprisingly upbeat, heartfelt book about a serious subject, The Wall Street Journal's veteran obituary writer, award-winning journalist James R. Hagerty, shares his unique skills with those who want to have the last word with flourish, honesty, and even humor. Whether in-brief for future newspapers and websites, or as a more complete mini-memoir for friends and family, Yours Truly is a guide to making sure your story is told the way you want - and how the process of preparing your own life story can help you live a better life.

Someday, your life story is likely to be boiled down to a few lines. If you leave things to chance, your obituary is almost sure to be solemn, formulaic, and full of errors--an obligatory final chapter written in haste by others. James R. Hagerty, longtime obit writer for The Wall Street Journal, knows how to get the job done right: Do it yourself, starting now, while you still can. In this heartfelt and reassuring guide, Hagerty explains how to preserve your personal history--from crafting a brief obituary for newspapers and websites, to a more thoughtful and detailed mini-memoir for those close to you. Through his personal stories, on-the-job anecdotes, and insights, you will learn what to include, what to leave out, and how to provide historical context, record oral histories and make the most of details, all with candor and wit. Best of all, you'll find that reviewing your life story helps you think about what you're doing with your time on Earth and whether you're on the right path. It isn't too late to improve the narrative with a stronger ending. Telling your story your way can be the best gift you ever give to friends and loved ones--and yourself.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Self Help, Biography, Audiobook, Biography Memoir

238 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 27, 2022

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

*****Publishing December 27, 2022*****

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ James R. Hagerty is an obituary writer for the Wall Street Journal. His purpose in writing this book is to teach the general public how to write a more accurate obituary as often obituaries are written by a family member or friend who is grief stricken. Their grief might often cause the obituary to be dull or lack details. A good point that he made was, does the family member or friend even know important dates or life events? Therefore, this author recommends writing your own or leaving notes on what you want said in your obituary. Writing it at a younger age can help reevaluate how your life is going and what you still want to accomplish.

This book is fascinating and informative! It sheds some light on what it takes to write an informative and meaningful obituary! This book gives great guidance with questions to think about, information to include/not include, and whether or not to include humorous parts of their lives or their personality. Not only does this book give great advice on how to write an obituary, but also how to write your own life story. This author also included his own experiences with writing obituaries for his job, family and even himself.

This book can be read all at once or one that you read over time. I loved how this author included humor in such a serious topic, it made this book more relatable! A highly informative book that that I encourage anyone who is wanting to write their own life story or obituary to consider reading!

Thanks to Kensington Books (Citadel), I was provided an ARC of Yours Truly by James R. Hagerty via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Kuang Ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very thought-provoking and highly recommend to everyone who wants to figure out the meaning of life. I’ve written the review and submit to a venerable Taiwanese magazine for online publication. Please have a look if interested😊


Link:
https://opinion.cw.com.tw/blog/profil...

[Sylvia Spruck Wrigley · Rating 4 out of 5]

In “Yours Truly,” James R. Hagerty encourages us to write down our life stories, making our memories come alive for those closest to us. Through his experience as an obituary writer for the Washing Post, Hagarty has acquired a unique understanding of what a person’s life story can mean to those left behind. He encourages us to go beyond the typical biographical narrative and make an attempt to capture the essence of who we are, rather than to leave our obituary in the hands of grieving people on a short deadline.

The extensive chapters cover a wide variety of practical help such as “What to Include,” “What Not To Include,” “Being Frank About the Family” and “How Pros Cover Their Own Stories.” In addition to such advice, we are treated to fascinating contextual details in chapters such as “A Ridiculously Short History of Obituaries” and “What We Can Learn from Pepys”.

Throughout the book, Hagerty shares interviews, anecdotes and examples form his own work to illustrate the value of personal stories from people of all walks of life. His tone is friendly and supportive, with plenty of interview questions and angles to consider when struggling to think of what to write. “Yours Truly” is an enjoyable reminder of the importance of capturing our memories while we still can. Through heartfelt musings and engaging stories, Hagarty delivers an inspiring message to set aside now to write about who we are and what we have done, not just as a gift to posterity but to better understand what we are doing now.

[Tyneisha Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read the book's title and cover, I was curious. I just had to check out this book, so I requested it. The book's author did a wonderful job with infusing humor and an upbeat vibe while explaining how to write your own obituary and why.

This book is full of wonderful tips and examples on how to write your own obituary. James R. Hagerty did a wonderful job in this book. As a writer myself, I love telling stories. Readers should check out this book!

My thanks to Kensington Publishing and NetGallery for a digital copy of this book for my review!

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always enjoy reading the author’s work in the Wall Street Journal; he makes the deceased come alive. He does this again in his book, notably including his mother and, of course, himself (to be completed). I actually found this to be both inspiring and a personal guide. Highly recommended.

[Beverly Hallfrisch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the personal histories scattered throughout.

[George Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most people, I've got a shelf full of advice books that were worth keeping, as well as an even larger number that eventually got donated to our local library's used-book fundraisers. It's a tricky genre.

For me, the true "keeper" books manage to do two things at once. They deliver a lot of practical tips that folks like me can put into action -- while also succeeding at the loftier register of inspiring us to aim higher and make good on a new vision of who we can be.

Bob Buford's "Half-Time" is a standout. Charles Duhigg's "The Power of Habit" rang the bell as well. Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" is a double-duty win for all of us who write for a living.

I'm delighted to add Bob Hagerty's "Yours Truly" to this list. He's a sure-footed guide in the opening chapters, taking us through the mechanics of what to include in a life memoir (some surprises there!) and what to leave out (excellent, sobering advice here, too.)

As the book gets rolling, Hagerty does a wonderful, understated job of helping us understand the "why" of memoir-writing, as well as the how. He invokes an excellent run of examples, ranging from Ben Franklin's 1790 memoir to the life stories of fishermen, his own family members, and people whose full potential was cut short by tragedy. We see the power of getting your story told, regardless of whether you're famous or not.

"Don't let anyone tell you that sharing your story is selfish, a sign of conceit or vanity," Hagerty writes in his final pages. "It's an act of generosity. . . . You can make people cry and make them laugh. They will need to do both when you're gone."

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read. I heard about in an NYT article. The author has been writing obituaries for a large part of his career as a journalist, and the wisdom he wants to share with this book is that the best obituaries are the ones that are written in advance of someone actually dying. This could happen one of two ways. Either a person is interviewed, and large chunks of their life story are told through their own eyes, but with someone else writing it. Or, they draft it themselves. Ultimately, you don’t want to be the person who passes away without having the story of your life recorded, and hence leaving your family, friends, or a funeral director to draft a simple account of birthdate, date of death, those left behind, and perhaps one or two other details to be your obit. Instead, with this book the author encourages the reader to start drafting your story now! He gives a lot of great ideas and prompts for doing so, and then in the second half of the book, he shares a ton of examples from people (both famous and not) who actually did this. This idea is something I’ve actually thought about doing previously, but not I’ve got a framework from which to actually begin.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Workable suggestions for examining your own life or someone else's life. The end goal is creating an entertaining summary obituary.

This is not depressing at all. It's invigorating.

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know what I was hoping for exactly, but this turned out to be something like Writing 101 for people unclear on what this whole "writing" thing was about, yet still felt like putting down what is referred to here as their "life story". There's even little text boxes repeating the most enlightening pieces of advice in case your attention span isn't QUITE up to speed ("Before you start writing any section of your story, think about what you're trying to say.").

I was kind of under the impression that an obituary was most of all short, a paragraph of concise yet personal information on a person that is no more. The author does not share this philosophy, instead going for a "more is more"-approach that leads, taken literally, to some kind of in-depth (auto-)biography I'm not sure I see the point of, unless you're thinking of leaving something behind for the grandkids and possible future generations. So if you're toying with the idea of writing a memoir, this book might be useful, just like all the other memoir-writing tomes might be useful; I wouldn't know, as this is not something I have the slightest interest in. I guess I was looking more for something that gave insight into the one-punch style of obit that doesn't waste a single word instead of talking you into pouring your life story into 300 chapters.

Also, this baby feels long. If you're the kind of person in need of what the author considers necessary pointers and priceless hints, as well as lots and lots of exhaustive examples of the "this is what I mean, and by the way, I've written it myself"-kind, maybe ploughing through 240 pages that easily feel like twice as much might be asking a bit much. I think part of the problem for me were the obituaries themselves, most of which went on FOREVER and proved less than exciting to read due to the amount of unnecessary detail, or which simply did not feel that interesting to me. On the other hand, if you enjoy reading up on the life experiences of random people, you will probably get a lot more out of this book than I did.


My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC of "Yours Truly" in exchange for an honest review.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

breezy discussion of why you should record your life story. Main focus is not really on the obituary form itself, though he does have one funny (to me) chapter on the various euphemisms ("transitioned" "met Jesus" etc. etc.) people use in that format to avoid saying that someone "died". Instead he's encouraging people to write lengthier accounts for their families/friends.

It's shorter on instruction re how best to do this and longer on funny/inspiring/intriguing examples drawn in some cases from literature and in most cases from interviews and research he has conducted as an obit writer for Wall Street Journal. Many of them were amusing, e.g. John Richards, an English reporter/editor who "took it upon himself to defend the apostrophe" (p 105) -- founded an Apostrophe Protection Society, kept himself busy for a while writing letters of complaint about misuses, etc. etc.....

........Only to find late in life that the pilot light had gone out on his obsession: "I think it may be an age thing, but somehow the apostrophe doesn't seem to matter to me as much as it did"

Sad turn of events indeed, but getting old can cause us to turn inward and narrow our focus i suppose.

Anyway, don't know that I have a long-form memoir in me, but I'm bound and determined to get a decent short obit drafted before I check out. And it won't be super-boring. Light on career recap; longer on (I hope) funny anecdotes!

[Nicole Normand · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from Prime; this is my honest review
Good questions to get started - later on, there are tons of them if you draw a blank. He mentions an excellent book I read last year (52 McGs). A few smiles here and there, some play on words which were really funny. Some highlights like the basics and the endorsements (never heard of this before the book). If you write about something you find unique, give at least an example of this. The obit in chap9 is the best I've read. In a few places, the author will sum up the book; for example: "don't leave it to family members, who are almost certain to make a hash of it", "find inspiration to tell your own story in your own way", and sums up with "Don’t let anyone tell you that sharing your story is selfish, a sign of conceit or vanity. It’s an act of generosity." I've read the book once a week for 4 months. It was enjoyable and inspiring. The only thing I was truly against is when the author says you can believe the newspapers (they have it right); yeah, no, not always, even in the case of obituaries.

[Katharine · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's some complicated math going on with my "stars" rating. Let me explain:
In my opinion, the book was
3.5 stars,
Rounded down for not doing a very good job at what it was billed to do (teaching you how to "write your own story"),
Rounded back up for being a really entertaining read anyway (about 40 very interesting stories about lives of people from all backgrounds and centuries)

The entire "guide" can be summarized with "Don't be boring, and tell people in your own words while you are alive so they aren't (boring) after you die." This was repeated about 15 times. That's it. I could've gotten that off a Twitter post.

But, the "as an example, let me tell you about.........." tales and histories and yarns and adventures and experiences were great fun to read. It was like a set of vignette biographies. And, that made me glad I had stumbled upon it anyway.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was more about telling your story with obituaries as the focusing element than a book about obituaries. Thinking of what you want people to remember about you and how to put information together for yourself and/or your relatives is a good thing to do during your lifetime and the things you and others want to remember aren't typically the things you see on the obituary page. Using many of his own works done for the WSJ these are stories show you what is important and what is memorable, such as the author's journalist mother becoming famous for a review of an Olive Garden that opened in Grand Forks, ND. I received a free Kindle edition of this book from the publisher through the Goodreads First Reads giveaways.

[Jing Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though Bob is one of my favorite living writers, I have to be truthful: this book is not at all what I expected. It is much better. As someone who loves reading obituaries and touring cemeteries in her pastime, I bought this book with the expectation that it is a collection of obituaries written by Bob over the years. It is much more than that. In it, Bob actually lays out a roadmap on how to write your own life story, with supporting material from the obits he has written. Seeing how instructive this book is, I have gifted several copies to my favorite people as a subtle nudge to start writing their life stories (because I want to read it one day.) Some took the nudge better than others.

[Samantha Mairson-Dougherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a game changer. Or maybe I'm just the kind of person who loves to think about legacy. What's that quote? Every time a person dies a library burns?

Hagerty teaches us how to record our life stories. Longform or short form (obit), Hagerty teaches us what questions to ask, and comes dangerously close to pure philosophy - asking you to ask yourself what are you doing with this one, precious life? Hagerty weaves in the life stories he's gathered across his career in order to demonstrate different points. The stories inspire me.

This will be a difficult book to return to the library and one that I will no doubt seek out again.

[CatherineA · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first part of this book is a good primer on how to write your own obituary. While that sounds morbid, it's not. It stems from the idea that each person has a story to tell. Why not write it out before you die? That way you get to tell your story in your way, and it takes the pressure off others when you die.

The second part of the book gives several examples that the author wrote for a newspaper, as well as examples of other people who wrote their own. Many of the examples are laugh-out-loud funny.

As a result of reading this book, I look forward to writing my own obituary - perhaps turning it into a memoir.

[Bethany Odom Waddell · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. The book was fine but was really 2 different pieces - how to write your own story/obit, and a bunch of obits and stories of people you don’t know. I would’ve preferred the first quarter of it, a summary of the key points he was trying to make through all the random people’s stories, the chapter that includes his own obit and excerpts of his longer story, and the summary chapter.

This is a short book, but would have been better even shorter.

[Anna Catherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather long and drawn out, Yours Truly makes some great points. Unfortunately, they're bogged down by a ton of not-extraordinarily-written examples that frequently break the rules Hagerty sets out at the beginning. There are only a handful of actual obituaries in the entire book; instead, they are generic mini-stories or, in some cases, not so mini. Hagerty frequently advocates for writing full-on autobiographies.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting read, but more importantly it spoke to the fact that we all have stories that are meaningful. The author argues that, and I agree, that we need to see the events of our lives as being of value to those who care about us. The process of writing our own story and including as many details as possible will be welcomed and appreciated by our families. There are many things I wish I knew about my family who have died.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the first part of this book. It gives great, helpful guidance for anyone thinking about writing a life story, or obituary. But the advice also applies for someone who wants to tell someone's story, is getting their 'affairs in order', or is active in genealogy.
The second part is a collection of life story vignettes intended as examples, some showing that every life has a story worth telling.

[Meepspeeps · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a delightful book that did exactly what I wanted it to do: inspire me to write more of my life story down. It’s really a DIY guide with good hints, questions, and examples to consider. “Don’t let anyone tell you that sharing your story is selfish…It’s an act of generosity. It’s a chance to…explain a few things…and thank those who gave you a hand or a smile when you needed it.” I recommend it to everyone.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is as much encouragement to write your story as a guide about how to do it. I learned that there are many options but the important thing is to get it out of your head so it will be accessible to others after you're gone. Lots of examples, too, and not for only widely accomplished individuals.

[Peter Hanson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Write your story

This book gives good advice: write your story if you want it to be correct. Writing it will help you to see and understand yourself , and may well help you to get on track. It’s not vain; it’s a gift to those you love, and to yourself. There are many good examples in this book, and there’s even humor.

[Andrea]

I love obituaries but this one wasn’t for me. It’s a lot about how to write your own story now. And I felt like that could be an article. Then there were lots of stories about people from their obituaries but they didn’t seem cohesive to me, like there was a rhyme or reason. Maybe I’m just distracted.

[T M S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful

This book has inspired me to write down a history for myself and also my elderly parents. While I was reading this book my Dad shared a story from his childhood I had never heard. It confirmed what Mr. Hagerty communicated throughout the book, write down your story, you may not be important but you’re important to someone!

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every few months, an obituary goes viral for being funny, largely because obituaries tend to be dull statements of facts. Hagerty makes a great argument for all obituaries to contain if not humor, some personal anecdotes. By his rules, my Dad's eventual obituary should include the time his sisters tied him in a sack and threw him from the barn rafters (a standard bit of our family lore). Hagerty also includes advice on things you should either ask your relatives or write down about yourself. The book was quite funny at times, but also made me think about the best ways to remember people.

[Chandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great, very focused volume that convinces you why writing your own obituary (i.e. your story) is important. Many succinct, fun examples are given along the way, as is a very practical guide on how to do it. My future reading list of memoirs grew substantially as I read this book. Are you an obituary reader? You should be an obituary writer.

[Earla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only half read currently I LOVE this book. Such a balance of the authors’ insightful wisdom and his wit! I’ll keep reading it but just had to pop in and say I am SO enjoying this book.

Okay now a week later, I’ve finished the book! It is excellent and delightful.

The book is thought-provoking, and the interviewed people for their obituaries, well it led me to want to meet most of them, but they are dead. 😉

I read this quote and thought of my experience with my co-writer Monica…
‘An interview should be a leisurely conversation. It should be a mutual exploration, leaving insights for both parties.’ - from the chapter Interviewing yourself and others in the book Yours Truly; An Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Story (2023) by James R. Hagerty, a Wall Street Journal reporter.

I feel as though reading this book is a simple way to move along with insight, empowered as I get to know others in the field of grief work and creative expressions of their grief. Thank you James!!

[Karen Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Original advice on writing the story of your life. Author, who doesn't take himself too seriously, also shares guidance on actively listening to others and many stories of lives well lived. Highly worthwhile read.