Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

With her background as a journalist, Roach applies an investigative eye to the study of the human cadaver. Roach is endlessly curious, and frequently embarks on tangents in her discussions of death. She is unafraid to confront even the more gruesome aspects of this subject, and indeed she witnesses surgeries, human decay, and body disposal in-person. Throughout the book Roach also gives personal anecdotes from her own life, and we learn that death has touched Roach’s life in a very personal way, as she has lost both her mother and her father. Confronting death directly, Roach speculates on what will be done with her own body when she passes away.

Roach’s tone throughout the book is irreverent and humorous, which stands in stark contrast to the subject matter of the book. Throughout the book, Roach is the primary character, moving from place to place to conduct interviews with the many people who populate the story of cadavers.

The cadavers themselves, though anonymous for the most part, are major characters in this story. From UM 006 (the car crash cadaver in Chapter Four) to “H” (the organ donor from Chapter Eight), the importance of these unnamed figures can be summarized by Roach as follows: