Author Alix Strauss takes a provocative look at the self-imposed deaths of the famous and infamous in Death Becomes Them. In this fascinating and intimate chronicle of celebrity suicides, the spotlight shines on the lonely last moments of Kurt Cobain and Ernest Hemingway, Abbie Hoffman and Adolf Hitler, Dorothy Dandridge, Sigmund Freud, Hunter S. Thompson, and others. Death Becomes Them explores their sadness and madness, their accomplishments and the circumstances that led to their irreversible decision, and wishes them all a fond final good-bye.
Death Becomes Them
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
For those who never miss the obits, this odd little compendium of true suicide stories from author Strauss (The Joy of Funerals, Have I Got a Guy for You) may scratch a certain itch. Focusing mainly on creative types-writers, actors, musicians and artists-Strauss strikes a genial tone infused with plenty of gallows humor; Sylvia Plath's tale is amended with a breezy sidebar on the troubled poet's method of self-execution, an oven fueled by coal gas: "Cheaper than pills, easier than hanging, and less messy than the remnants from a gunshot, death by coal was quick, painless, and, most important, easily accessible." Strauss's giddy enthusiasm for the topic manifests in easy jokes and glib chapter titles ("Not the Suite Life: Ten Hotel Suicides"), as well as lists of facts that read dangerously close to DIY instruction. One can almost forgive the relentlessly upbeat tone, however, as the book proves hopelessly dreary, even for the most morbid of tabloid-readers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“A truly unique, compelling and strangely life-affirming work of literary investigation. The perfect book to get you through the night. ” (Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight )
“Dark, grisly, and completely fascinating. I almost felt guilty for so thoroughly enjoying this look at history’s most tormented souls.” (A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year Of Living Biblically )
“Strauss brilliantly exposes the devilry in the details and makes the profoundly moving, self-inflicted end-days of the greats a fascinating read.” (Michael Largo, author of Genuis and Heroin )
“A truly unique, compelling and strangely life-affirming work of literary investigation. The perfect book to get you through the night. ” (Rona Jaffe, author of The Room-Mating Season, among others )
“Dark, grisly, and completely fascinating. I almost felt guilty for so thoroughly enjoying this look at history’s most tormented souls.” (A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year Of Living Biblically )
“Strauss brilliantly exposes the devilry in the details and makes the profoundly moving, self-inflicted end-days of the greats a fascinating read.” (Michael Largo, author of Genuis and Heroin )
“A truly unique, compelling and strangely life-affirming work of literary investigation. The perfect book to get you through the night. ” (Rona Jaffe, author of The Room-Mating Season, among others )
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More About the Author
A media savvy social satirist, Alix Strauss has been a featured lifestyle and trend writer on national morning and talk shows including ABC, CBS, CNN, and the Today show. Her articles, which have appeared in the New York Times, New York Post, Time Magazine, Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly and Self, among others, cover a range of topics from trends in beauty, travel, and food to celebrity interviews. She is the author of the award winning short story collection The Joy of Funerals, Death Becomes Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious, and the soon-to-be-released Based Upon Availability. She is also the editor of Have I Got a Guy for You, an anthology of mother coordinated dating horror stories. She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships including the David Dornstein Creative Writing Award, which she won for her short story "Shrinking Away." A true Manhattanite, Alix lectures extensively and has spoken at over 100 events and symposiums. For more information on upcoming projects, recent articles, past events, and book reviews or to view clips of her television appearances please visit her website www.alixstrauss.com.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Books like Malcolm Forbes's They Went That-Away: How the Famous, the Infamous, and the Great Died (1989), M. F. Steen's Celebrity Death Certificates (2005) and this one by Alix Strauss all feed into and reflect a certain social fascination with the premature deaths of celebrities - the new gods, as many say, in our increasingly secularized society.
Many of the cultural representations of suicide over the years have been more than a little questionable at best. Often famous artists who have killed themselves undergo romanticisation for their self-destructive ends (e.g. Kurt Cobain, Nick Drake, Ian Curtis, Elliott Smith, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf). Such romanticisation seems partly to have the function of glossing over the individual and social psychological and emotional problems that underlie what is in most cases a very tragic act, making it more 'palatable' to a public eager for behind-the-scenes access to the lives of public figures. Hand-in-hand with this cultural romanticisation and heroisation of suicide goes a morbid fascination with the details - the chosen method, the appearance of the corpse, the documentation, and the pain that usually preceded the act. And it is this morbid voyeurism that Alix Strauss gleefully feeds in her book Death Becomes Them (2009). As its neon cover suggests with the respective method hovering above the celebrity's name - a gas oven above Plath, a dagger-like knife above Elliott Smith, a noose suspended above Ian Curtis - this is one of the 'glossy' takes on tragedy written by, as the dust jacket tells us, "a lifestyle trend writer for national talk shows".
There are three key moral problems to Strauss's book, I think:
1. It trivialises suicide and the negative emotions and thought patterns that frequently precede it (when talking of the Hollywood actress Peg Entwistle, for example, Strauss writes "this would be her last performance", as if suicide could be equated with theatre).
2. It explains in detail to its readership the most effective ways of killing yourself. Given that the Centre for Suicide Research at Oxford University has found that "all research suggests that showing, in detail, methods of suicide does result in an increase of those methods immediately afterwards", this is irresponsible of Strauss and her publishers (Harper).
3. It treats all suicides as equal and at one point directly follows an account of Hitler's suicide with one of Sigmund Freud (which was not technically a suicide) who had to flee the Nazis in 1938, escaping from Vienna to settle in London. Disturbingly, Strauss seems to equate Nazi genocide of the Jews with the emergence of jaw cancer in the Jewish Freud, which was largely self-caused by his 20-a-day cigar habit: "As Hitler's power blazed through parts of Europe, cancer did the same to Freud" (p. 230). Rather repugnantly she includes a "Career Highlights" section for Hitler, too.
There is also the matter of factual inaccuracies:
In the chapter on the poet Sylvia Plath, for instance, Strauss writes that she died in Devon (she didn't, she died in London), that she was found by the nanny (it was actually the nurse and construction workers), that Ted Hughes's second wife also killed herself (which might surprise his second wife who is alive and well and living in Devon; he never married Assia Wevill), and that the poet Anne Sexton read "a touching eulogy" at her funeral (Sexton did not in fact attend her funeral, which was held in Yorkshire).
The author of a blog on Plath found in excess of 22 errors within the space of the 10 pages written on Plath alone.
Many of the cultural representations of suicide over the years have been more than a little questionable at best. Often famous artists who have killed themselves undergo romanticisation for their self-destructive ends (e.g. Kurt Cobain, Nick Drake, Ian Curtis, Elliott Smith, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf). Such romanticisation seems partly to have the function of glossing over the individual and social psychological and emotional problems that underlie what is in most cases a very tragic act, making it more 'palatable' to a public eager for behind-the-scenes access to the lives of public figures. Hand-in-hand with this cultural romanticisation and heroisation of suicide goes a morbid fascination with the details - the chosen method, the appearance of the corpse, the documentation, and the pain that usually preceded the act. And it is this morbid voyeurism that Alix Strauss gleefully feeds in her book Death Becomes Them (2009). As its neon cover suggests with the respective method hovering above the celebrity's name - a gas oven above Plath, a dagger-like knife above Elliott Smith, a noose suspended above Ian Curtis - this is one of the 'glossy' takes on tragedy written by, as the dust jacket tells us, "a lifestyle trend writer for national talk shows".
There are three key moral problems to Strauss's book, I think:
1. It trivialises suicide and the negative emotions and thought patterns that frequently precede it (when talking of the Hollywood actress Peg Entwistle, for example, Strauss writes "this would be her last performance", as if suicide could be equated with theatre).
2. It explains in detail to its readership the most effective ways of killing yourself. Given that the Centre for Suicide Research at Oxford University has found that "all research suggests that showing, in detail, methods of suicide does result in an increase of those methods immediately afterwards", this is irresponsible of Strauss and her publishers (Harper).
3. It treats all suicides as equal and at one point directly follows an account of Hitler's suicide with one of Sigmund Freud (which was not technically a suicide) who had to flee the Nazis in 1938, escaping from Vienna to settle in London. Disturbingly, Strauss seems to equate Nazi genocide of the Jews with the emergence of jaw cancer in the Jewish Freud, which was largely self-caused by his 20-a-day cigar habit: "As Hitler's power blazed through parts of Europe, cancer did the same to Freud" (p. 230). Rather repugnantly she includes a "Career Highlights" section for Hitler, too.
There is also the matter of factual inaccuracies:
In the chapter on the poet Sylvia Plath, for instance, Strauss writes that she died in Devon (she didn't, she died in London), that she was found by the nanny (it was actually the nurse and construction workers), that Ted Hughes's second wife also killed herself (which might surprise his second wife who is alive and well and living in Devon; he never married Assia Wevill), and that the poet Anne Sexton read "a touching eulogy" at her funeral (Sexton did not in fact attend her funeral, which was held in Yorkshire).
The author of a blog on Plath found in excess of 22 errors within the space of the 10 pages written on Plath alone.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read any book I can find on death and dying. I found this book at a local Bodies exhibition and snapped it right up. It was on display next to one of my favorite books, Mary Roach's Stiff; the Curious Life of Human Cadavers (I heartily recommend any book she has written or writes in the future!)
As other reviewers have noted, this book has many inaccurate details. This may have something to do with Alix Strauss' first source listed as Wikipedia!?!?! Uhhhhhhh... My biggest gripe however was Strauss' writing style. Her commentary on the subject matter was dull and many times left me scratching my head. Her metaphors fell flat and frequently I was re-reading passages to see if I read things as she intended. Her symbolism was off the mark and often times reminded me of a teenage fan cult. She just doesn't do it for me.
As other reviewers have noted, this book has many inaccurate details. This may have something to do with Alix Strauss' first source listed as Wikipedia!?!?! Uhhhhhhh... My biggest gripe however was Strauss' writing style. Her commentary on the subject matter was dull and many times left me scratching my head. Her metaphors fell flat and frequently I was re-reading passages to see if I read things as she intended. Her symbolism was off the mark and often times reminded me of a teenage fan cult. She just doesn't do it for me.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Steve
Format:Paperback
Do not read this book if you want real and accurate information. Just three examples of the sad lack of accuracy Alix Strauss passes off as a book:
1. Nick Adams starred in the TV series "The Rebel", NOT "Rebel Without a Cause" as Strauss states.
2. Adolf Hitler's body did NOT show traces of any poisoning and there is no physical evidence that he shot himself. A reasonable possibility is that he was strangled by his man-servant because he wouldn't commit suicide and the Russians were closing in. Arguably the best biography on Hitler is Robert Waite's The Psychopathic God.
3. Kurt Cobain's death biography is fictional in the most important areas. His skull did not have an exit wound so the foolishness of Courtney Love supposedly finding a small piece of his skull is ridiculous. Also the comments on what shotguns can do does not apply to what actually happened to Cobain. Read the police report; it only describes damage to the mouth; no exit wound. The statement that he did not have enough drugs in him to kill him is not accurate. In fact he had 3 times the lethal dose in his system. And that lethal overdose proves that he could NOT have shot himself. The statement that investigators confirmed that only Kurt was pointing the gun is wrong: see [...]. And regarding legible fingerprints, NONE were found, not even Cobain's, which raises the red flag of someone wiping the weapon down after the shooting. Again, read the police and lab reports which can be found online.
Don't bother reading something that is not accurate.
1. Nick Adams starred in the TV series "The Rebel", NOT "Rebel Without a Cause" as Strauss states.
2. Adolf Hitler's body did NOT show traces of any poisoning and there is no physical evidence that he shot himself. A reasonable possibility is that he was strangled by his man-servant because he wouldn't commit suicide and the Russians were closing in. Arguably the best biography on Hitler is Robert Waite's The Psychopathic God.
3. Kurt Cobain's death biography is fictional in the most important areas. His skull did not have an exit wound so the foolishness of Courtney Love supposedly finding a small piece of his skull is ridiculous. Also the comments on what shotguns can do does not apply to what actually happened to Cobain. Read the police report; it only describes damage to the mouth; no exit wound. The statement that he did not have enough drugs in him to kill him is not accurate. In fact he had 3 times the lethal dose in his system. And that lethal overdose proves that he could NOT have shot himself. The statement that investigators confirmed that only Kurt was pointing the gun is wrong: see [...]. And regarding legible fingerprints, NONE were found, not even Cobain's, which raises the red flag of someone wiping the weapon down after the shooting. Again, read the police and lab reports which can be found online.
Don't bother reading something that is not accurate.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
not so good
It's a fascinating subject, but one which veers a little close to voyeurism. In the right hands, it might make a fascinating read, with an opportunity for some real insights. Read more
Published on January 18, 2010 by C. P. Anderson
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating nonsense.
The author writes with compassion about the reasons for suicide, the ways, and the results.
And in a self-absorbed, disorganized style that would have caused me to fail... Read more
And in a self-absorbed, disorganized style that would have caused me to fail... Read more
Published on October 22, 2009 by Maria Beadnell
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW...A Thought Provoking read
The icons Alix chose in this book provide an opportunity for much thought and bring the characters' lives and deaths alive, as it were. Read more
Published on October 11, 2009 by Frederic Iverson
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Home Run
A great autumnal read whether you Kindle or enjoy turning the page. So interesting to learn the MO of many personalities before they KO.
Another home run for Alix!!!
Another home run for Alix!!!
Published on October 11, 2009 by Joan L. Goldsmith
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deathe Becomes Them: A "Killer" Read
For those of you with a bent to the macabre or the voyeuristic, Death Becomes Them is a great read. Ms. Read more
Published on October 8, 2009 by Michael Zorek
5.0 out of 5 stars
Death Becomes Them: An Intimate Portrait
Death Becomes Them is an intimate portrait of our most influential cultural icons. Sylvia Plath, Adolf Hitler, Diane Arbus, Sigmund Freud, Vincent van Gogh, Abbie Hoffman,... Read more
Published on October 7, 2009 by Shari Leventhal
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real review
This is a fascinating and comprehensive book and Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood in Boston last time I checked.....
Published on October 7, 2009 by L. Rosenstein
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Read!
I highly recommend this book! This was one of the most fascinating and compelling books I've ever read! Read more
Published on October 7, 2009 by wendy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read
Alix Strauss has complied a comprehensive and intriguing read for the twisted voyeur in me. I've
learned so much about the demise of famous authors, poets, artists and rock... Read more
learned so much about the demise of famous authors, poets, artists and rock... Read more
Published on October 7, 2009 by Susannah Perlman
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brilliant Read!
I couldn't disagree more with Peter Steinberg as I have read the book and thoroughly enjoyed EVERY MOMENT OF IT! Read more
Published on October 7, 2009 by Melissa
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