Customer Reviews

Death Becomes Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

I highly recommend this book! This was one of the most fascinating and compelling books I've ever read! Each profile is well executed with page turning details, descriptions, and suspenseful intricate moments unfolding the mysterious stories of these accomplished figures. It's dark, it's informative, it's FANTASTIC!

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.

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 stars, their

rise and demise. No bloody detail is spared. If you like dark, this book is for you.

Whether or not you're fascinated with celebrity suicides, the stories Alix Strauss puts together are interesting, if morbid. From Adolph Hitler to Ernest Hemmingway, if you were famous and you offed yourself, you won't be resting in peace quite yet. This is a comprehensive perspective on celebrity suicide, although Strauss paints with very broad brush strokes; some of the stories are a bit inaccurate, though the essence of these tales remains compelling, nonetheless.

It should be noted that while many of these suicides came as a big surprise to the vast majority of the population, glamorizing Adolph Hitler's suicide seems misguided. His was an act of cowardice; others were terminally ill and in constant pain.

This is certainly an engaging and very interesting piece of work; it won't change the world, but it may help explain some of the insanity that goes on in people's minds a little better; or it may help explain their logic.

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. In the wrong hands, though, something like this is going to end up as trash.

I'm afraid this one comes a lot closer to the latter than the former. There are no great insights, though the details of how some of the different victims died is valuable and interesting. A couple of reviewers pointed out some of the factual errors, so I won't go into any more of that. Overall, I didn't see much more here than what could be stitched together after an afternoon trolling the Internet.

What really bugged me, though, was the writing. It seemed very much liked it was dashed off in an afternoon too. Here are some of my faves:

- The pill-popping Polly Prozacs of the 1970s gave us the birth of "anti-psychosis" drugs such as Thorazine. [Man, that's a lot of P's. And what does an anti-psychotic from the 50s have to do with an anti-depressant from the 70s?]

- We want to comfort ourselves against the coldness of loneliness, and suicide is a surrender to that method of controlling one's own fate. [huh?]

- INXS was conceived at Australia's Davidson High School. [What, they only have one?]

- Artists, especially visual ones, have been perceived as struggling, tortured souls as far back as 1584, when Daswanth, an Indian miniaturist painter, stabbed himself with a dagger. [Ah, yes, who could forget the immortal Daswanth?]

- The "broken heart" category easily slips into the "guilt over an affair" category. [Really? Maybe only when you're desperate to make a transition to your next paragraph.]

- Artists, most of whose artistic endeavors aren't discovered or commercialized until they're deceased. [Hmm, tell that to Andy Warhol.]

- She [Diane Arbus] was like the Pied Piper, but rather than toting a flute, she flashed a camera. [Okay, so the flute is the camera, and Hamelin is New York, and the rats are ...]

- Diane's work grew darker as her interest in those left of center became more intense. [Didn't you know? All dwarves and transvestites are Socialists.]

- Chain smoking and heavy drinking had attributed to his high blood pressure, hypertension, and emphysema. [I'm not a doctor, but aren't those first two the same thing?]

- He took lots of pills; amphetamines, black beauties, and Dexedrine were some of his favorites. [Once again, I'm not a doctor, but I think all *three* of these things are the same thing.]

- Uberinfluential singer songwriter Jimi Hendrix could noodle a guitar like nobody's business. [Oh, so, that's how you get uberinfluential - noodling.]

- A brawl with toxic shock syndrome in 1985 left him with brain damage [I know he was a wrestler, but how about a "bout" instead?]

- For some, death signifies a political statement or defines a particular period in history. [The Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Gilded Age, the Belle Epoque, the Roaring 20s - all of them, death-initiated.]

- Tatum O'Neill: actress; 1970s ("adolescence," before car accident in 1978 - twice) [what?]

Is English not her first language? Did no one else take a look at this? Is she really a 7th grader? I see, from the back cover, she is a "lifestyle trend writer for national talk shows" (and is available for "speaking engagements"). Maybe that explains it all.

I couldn't disagree more with Peter Steinberg as I have read the book and thoroughly enjoyed EVERY MOMENT OF IT! I found the content to be tremendously interesting, brilliantly presented, and furthermore a wealth of knowledge! These suicides are wonderfully described allowing you to feel what each icon thought, felt, and did in their last days before their suicide. As a response to Peter Steinberg's review, I have done my own fact checking and found his facts nit-picking and often incorrect. For instance, Plath's birth place of Jamaica Plain is a historic neighborhood of 4.4 square miles (11 km2) in Boston, Massachusetts! I could go on counteracting these ridiculous, unjustified criticisms, but instead I wish to compliment Alix and her fabulously brilliant read and couldn't say enough to recommend this book to everyone!

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 seventh grade English. Nouns and verbs don't agree, tense changes from present to past and back within the same story, metaphors mixed beyond comprehension.

"Each death is as diverse as the person who killed himself." OK, she does not know how to use the word diverse.

"It's the puzzle not yet finished, the questions that still need answers." IS it the questions?

"...at a certain point, someone will kill themselves in order to prove her seriousness."

This was by page nine. This couldn't be a professional writer, I thought, and checked the bio. The bio said she had been a travel writer for the New York Times. I wonder now if she told the editors to buzz off, "I wrote for the TIMES, don't you dare correct me!" --or did the Times ask her to leave.

In case you think I'm just grammer police, there's the historical inaccuracy. She thanks five researchers, none of which seemed able to find out that Ted Hughes never married Assia.

Could have been a good book.

This is a fascinating and comprehensive book and Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood in Boston last time I checked.....