Photo: Mary Roach
I stumbled upon Mary Roach’s brilliance in a rather roundabout way. I’m a regular at my local library, but I didn’t find her there. I don’t belong to any book clubs. I read the book reviews in newspapers and magazines, but that’s not where I found one of my favorite authors.
I found her in the middle of the night, on a couch in an Alzheimer’s unit of a nursing home. I was working there briefly, to pay off some household expenses, and had the pleasure of getting to know some interesting characters (beyond the patients themselves). Christopher was one of my favorites. He held down the job to help pay for his studies, of mortuary science, at our local community college. To pass the time in the wee hours of the night, we had long, interesting discussions about life and death and taking care of dead bodies.
I’m a person who likes to know how the world works beyond my personal daily cocoon. I’d never had the chance to peek behind the curtain of mortuary science, to hear about the realities that face our bodies after death. One night Christopher brought me a book to read. It was on his assigned reading list for class and he (rightfully) thought I’d like it. It was called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. And this is how I found its author, Mary Roach.
[Read the rest of Judy Berna’s interview with author Mary Roach on GeekMom!]
