Bought: The Dead Beat

Robert Bloch wrote a novel called The Dead Beat. I once owned a copy, sold during the early years of my marriage when it seemed we would move from apartment to apartment forever and my books would never come out of boxes. This ain't that. This book is subtitled Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries. The author, Marilyn Johnson, has toiled in the magazine field as editor and writer of obits (among, I presume, other things). This appears to be her first book and I like to imagine that, made sensitive to the Reaper's presence, she is trying to escape from that swiftly thinning field before the whole moribund industry falls to his scythe. Her flight is less than assured because: a) leaping from periodicals to books may be like escaping the Titanic via rope ladder only to find yourself on board the Hindenburg; and b) I found this book on the bargain shelves, remaindered.

The Dead Beat's bibliography includes The Last Word, edited by Marvin Siegel, a wonderful collection of obits from the New York Times which, come to think of it, I found remaindered. The Last Word eschews celebrity deaths, focusing instead on eccentrics, local heroes, inventors and the like. It's a paradoxically uplifting book and a steal at any price.