Tom Lynch

"If you really want to know for sure that the human soul resides in the brain, you could cut off a man's head and ask it," begins chapter nine of Mary Roach's "Stiff."

In "Stiff," Roach examines the history of the human cadaver, its uses and the biological effects of being deceased. And it's really funny. Her research covers a variety of marvelous dead topics, from lab dissections of human heads to the use of human crash-test dummies. And Roach doesn't shy away; she invests herself in the setting in which she's immersed, where there is always a distinct smell, and the most interesting thing in the room is immobile and lifeless.

Roach realizes that death is a particularly fragile subject, and that the thought of the recently deceased being gruesomely probed may not put too many readers at ease, but never once is she inappropriate. After all, she is human herself; she has experienced death during her life (she notes the waking experience with her mother), so she is wonderfully sensitive with the information. But it is here that the book becomes unlike any other, where it truly succeeds; Roach's behavior in the presence of the dead is real, and she reacts as any of us would. She humorously describes how she tries to convince herself that she is not viewing corpses, but rather exhibits in a wax museum, and she is responsible enough to comment on the possible existence of the soul, and how the bodies are not people, just remains.

Roach's deliberate carefulness diminishes the topic's gore and sets a comfortable, comic tone that finds solace in its own oddity. Certain sections of the book are nothing short of mesmerizing, namely the portions dedicated to the University of Tennessee's "body farm," and the analysis of remains after plane crashes. "By and large, the dead aren't very talented," Roach writes. They may not be talented, but in "Stiff," they sure are fun.

Stiff

By Mary Roach

W.W. Norton Company, $23.95, 294 pages

(2003-05-07)

Also by Tom Lynch

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Notes from the Madden Underground
(2003-01-29)

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