Thank you to all the dead I met whose names I know and those I don’t.
Thank you also to the living, for their time and their work: Poppy Mardall, Aaron and Roseanna in the mortuary, Terry Regnier, Nick Reynolds, Mark “Mo” Oliver, Neal Smither, Jerry Givens, Ron and Jean Troyer, Dr Philip Gore, Kevin Sinclair, Lara-Rose Iredale, Clare Beesley, Mike and Bob at Arnos Vale, Tony and Dave at Canford Crematorium, Dennis and Hillary at the Cryonics Institute, and Anthony Mattick.
Thank you to Clint Edwards, my first and closest reader, my lighthouse when I was lost in a sea of transcripts and drafts, my trusty driver of shitty rental cars, and the poor bastard who lived through not only several painful deadlines with me but also a global pandemic: Wayne and Waynetta forever. Eddie Campbell and Audrey Niffenegger, my favourite couple of weirdos, without whom there might have been no book at all. Kristofor Minta, for introducing me to Ernest Becker all those years ago and dealing with what came next. Caitlin Doughty, for her wisdom and a place to crash (sorry I attempted to grind coffee beans in your milkshake blender). Dr John Troyer, overlord of death, for opening doors and letting me borrow his brains and his family. Sally Orson-Jones, for arguing with me until I figured out what I was trying to say. Oli Franklin-Wallis, for the pep talks on the ledge. Cat Mihos, my lab rat (apologies in addition to thank yous).
Thank you to the kind, patient and smart people at Raven Books, most of all Alison Hennessey and Katie Ellis-Brown, as well as Hannah Phillips at St. Martin’s Press. Thank you to my agents Laura Macdougall, Olivia Davies, Sulamita Garbuz, and Jon Elek. Thank you also to The Society of Authors and the Authors’ Foundation for partially funding this thing.
There are numerous people who answered my seemingly random questions – whether about birds, letter carving, or consciousness – or somehow helped along the way. Thank you to Professor Dame Sue Black, Vivienne McGuire at the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee, Paul Kefford, Dean Fisher at UCLA, Roger Avary, Anil Seth, BJ Miller, Bryan Magee, Bruce Levine, Eric Marland, Sharon Stiteler, Nick Booth, Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, Lucy Coleman Talbot, João Medeiros, Dr Ollie Minton and Vanessa Spencer at Arnos Vale.
This book was written at the back of a bus in rural Minnesota, next to a tumble dryer in a New York hotel that is now in the process of being demolished, on a rooftop in New Orleans and typed in a car outside an Arby’s somewhere in Michigan, but mostly it was written in North London. Thank you to my pals who variously gave me places to sleep, lifts, books, dinner, all of the above or simply an invitation to air my grievances: Eleanor Morgan, Olly Richards, Leo Barker, Nathaniel Metcalfe, Ossie Hirst, Andy Riley and Polly Faber, Cate Sevilla, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Bill Stiteler, Stephen Rodrick, Toby Finlay, Darren Richman, Tom Spurgeon who rescued us one snowy night in Ohio (rest in peace, old friend), Erin and Mackenzie Dalrymple, Michael and Courtney Gaiman, and my own personal George Costanza, John Saward. Thank you to Peter and Jackie Knight for looking after Ned the cat, and thank you to Ned himself: my shadow, my paperweight, my self-appointed alarm clock.
Writing this book made my hair streak grey, so thank you to Susan Sontag and Lily Munster for making it look deliberate.