Tom Lynch

Mary Roach believes in ghosts.

The Oakland, California author skyrocketed into superstardom with 2003's surprise megahit, "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers," an extensive, humorous and educating look at the fate of human cadavers throughout time that found a comfortable home on the New York Times bestseller list and played a table-turning role in HBO's cult drama series "Six Feet Under." "Stiff" was mesmerizing in every grim detail, from the research facilities of decomposing bodies--it's tough to get the stench of the dead out from your shoes--to the history of embalming. Roach found herself amongst some of the world's quirkiest experts on the process of death, and her every-person humor turned a textbook into an adventure story, one of the best in recent memory.

This month, Roach returns with "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife," her death sequel that focuses on the weight of the soul--yes, its literal weight, but also, and most importantly, its symbolic weight amongst different cultures and its debatable existence. Is there an afterlife? Do ghosts exist? Roach injects her one-liner charm into most of the madness--a trek that sends her across the globe--and to disturbingly sensational results. "Spook" delivers on the promise of "Stiff" with the confidence of a stallion and the humor of sketch comedy.

"This book is almost like a spinoff," says Roach. "There was a guy in `Stiff' named Duncan McDougal, a doctor in Massachusetts who decided to take patients, install a weight meter on their beds and see if the scale goes down when they die. I loved the approach. It showed a faith in science and in medicine, that you can use it to prove that a soul exists, and you can install that in religion. I was just curious if there were any other attempts. There were a couple other things in `Stiff'--the debate about whether the soul was in the brain or the heart. Some cultures believe that the soul is found in the liver, or the stomach. I just liked that notion of a scientific pursuit of actually figuring it out."

The subject matter wasn't something in which Roach always had interest. "It was something that just came up while I was working on "Stiff.' I'm not at all a sort of philosophical person, I'm not new age. This is odd terrain for me. I'm very solidly grounded in stuff you can pick up and see. The afterlife is an odd one for me. The material is so fascinating, so surreal, and never treated with any sort of humor. It's always a sappy approach, or a debunking thing. There hasn't been a book about it that you could just curl up with. I do take it as seriously as I can, but it was also a great opportunity to have fun."

The success of "Stiff" completely caught Roach off guard, given its topic. "They gave me a nice advance on the book, and I thought, `Oh Jesus, I'm not gonna sell one book,'" Roach laughs. "All across the country I would have to be like, `No, no I'm not sick. No, this book isn't what you think.' Then all of a sudden the publisher was like, `You made the list.' I'm like, `What list? Somebody's shit list?'"

The colorful resources Roach had while writing "Stiff"--after all, dead bodies are great when described in detail--made that work much easier to compile than "Spook," where most of the text focuses on the intangible. "That was really the hardest and most worrisome part, like what will I go and describe," Roach says. "In every chapter [in "Spook"] I was going somewhere, though. I couldn't describe any souls, I didn't have that component, nor did I have dead bodies to have fun with. When I set up the book, I figured I'd have a setting for each chapter, always have physical things to describe since I couldn't describe the subject matter itself. I myself was not able to describe the afterlife firsthand."

Afterlife experiences, as well as specific religious beliefs, are kept well out of Roach's work for multiple reasons she describes in the opening chapter. She wanted her content to be based in scientific evidence, rather than fallible belief systems. Roach, though lighthearted about the possible fallout, seems a bit concerned about its possibility. "They're [the religious contingent] trying to hammer you in the head with what they believe," says Roach. "I'm anticipating a lot of one-star reviews on Amazon.com."

Mary Roach reads from "Spook" on November 1 at 57th Street Books, 1301 East 57th Street, (773)684-1300, at 7pm. Free.

(2005-10-25)

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