How famous people really died, checked against the record

Everyone wonders about famous celebrity deaths. Few people admit it at dinner. The traffic on the subject is enormous and the conversation about it is small, which is a reliable sign that a book is needed.

The Portable Obituary is that book. It tracks how the famous, rich, and powerful actually took their final bows, from Socrates to Anna Nicole, and asks what the manner of their going says about the way they lived.

The premise is simple and a little wicked

A famous person's deeds, intimate habits, and lifestyle shaped their mode of death. Their mode of death then shaped their place in history. Put those two claims together and you have a thesis that can be tested against several centuries of notable corpses, which is precisely what the book does.

It holds up more often than it should. The way a public figure is remembered is frequently determined less by the work than by the exit, and the exit is frequently determined by habits the work never mentioned.

Legend against record

The most useful thing a researcher can do with a famous death is check it. Popular accounts of how famous people died circulate for decades in forms that were never accurate, improved at each retelling by people with no access to the paperwork.

The book checks legend against record, and the record usually turns out to be the better story. This is the consistent finding across the author's work, and it is the reason the books read as darkly funny rather than merely grim. Reality has a way of supplying details no inventor would risk.

The questions it opens with

Which performers, from Mozart to rock and roll, ended their lives on the wrong note. What famous United States bridge bears the name of an explorer who was eaten by cannibals. Whether Lady Luck visits lottery winners bearing deadly fangs. What really became of the Gilligan's Island castaways and the actors who played them.

These are the sort of questions that sound like trivia until you notice that answering any one of them properly requires real archival work.

The horror world noticed

The New York Times called it a fascinating compendium of famous deaths that will keep you reading long into the night. The Horror Writers Association named it a Bram Stoker Award finalist in nonfiction, the second time this author's research drew the horror world's attention, for the straightforward reason that reality is frightening enough.

The first time was Final Exits, which won the award outright the year before. That book asks how people in general die. This one asks how specific famous people did, which turns out to be a different question with a different kind of answer.

The bottom of the rabbit hole

If you have ever lost an evening reading about how famous people died, consider this the authoritative bottom of that rabbit hole. Luridly compelling, thoroughly checked, and organized so you can enter at any entry and leave whenever you manage to.

It also happens to be the seasonal pick. There is more on that in the guide to Halloween books for adults, and the broader case for the genre in books about death that do not flinch.