Audiobook8 hours
The Chick and the Dead: Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors
Written by Carla Valentine
Narrated by Beverley A. Crick
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Carla Valentine works with the dead. After studying forensics, she assisted pathologists with post-mortems for years before becoming the curator of the world's most famous pathology museum. When it comes to death, she truly is an expert, and in this book she shares that expertise.
Using the most common post-mortem process as the backbone of the narrative, The Chick and the Dead takes the listener through the process of an autopsy while also describing the history and changing cultures of our relationship with the dead. The book is full of vivid insight into what happens to our bodies in the end. Each chapter considers an aspect of an autopsy alongside an aspect of Carla's own life and work and touches on some of the more controversial aspects of our feelings towards death, including the relationship between sex and death and our attitudes toward human tissue collection.
Starting with the first cut, we move from external examination into the body itself, discovering more about the heart, stomach, and brain, and into dismembered and reconstructed bodies, at each stage taking a colorful detour into the question of what these things can teach us about the living.
Using the most common post-mortem process as the backbone of the narrative, The Chick and the Dead takes the listener through the process of an autopsy while also describing the history and changing cultures of our relationship with the dead. The book is full of vivid insight into what happens to our bodies in the end. Each chapter considers an aspect of an autopsy alongside an aspect of Carla's own life and work and touches on some of the more controversial aspects of our feelings towards death, including the relationship between sex and death and our attitudes toward human tissue collection.
Starting with the first cut, we move from external examination into the body itself, discovering more about the heart, stomach, and brain, and into dismembered and reconstructed bodies, at each stage taking a colorful detour into the question of what these things can teach us about the living.
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Reviews for The Chick and the Dead
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
22 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A bit of a snoozer but it brought me back to life at times. Carla Valentine is a person writing about how she progressed in her early career as a mortuary assistant conducting autopsies. It wasn't totally clear what drew her to this profession but she certainly became engrossed in it. You have to be pretty unique for this line of work, not for most.She takes us through her trials and tribulations of learning her trade and the typical challenges at times of a woman in a boy's club. But she steadily progresses because of her seeming passion for the work. The descriptions of the work she performs takes on a fairly clinical tone with some interesting cases.We also get a glimpse into her personal life. The loneliness she encounters that most of us do at sometimes in our lives. A great heart break also that alters her outlook on her career and results in some changes. As the book winds down she offers some takes on her profession and life and death in general which were interesting. Overall however the book was rather blase and almost technical in nature that elicited the occasional yawn.