Playing Dead, Elizabeth Greenwood
Playing Dead, Elizabeth Greenwood
5 Rating(s)
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Playing Dead
A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud

Author: Elizabeth Greenwood

Narrator: Arden Hammersmith

Unabridged: 7 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/09/2016


Synopsis

A darkly comic foray into the world of men and women who fake their own deaths, the consultants who help them disappear, and the private investigators who’ll stop at nothing to bring them back to life.

“A delightful read for anyone tantalized by the prospect of disappearing without a trace.” —Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake
“Delivers all the lo-fi spy shenanigans and caught-red-handed schadenfreude you’re hoping for.” —NPR
“A lively romp.” —The Boston Globe
“Grim fun.” —The New York Times
“Brilliant topic, absorbing book.” —The Seattle Times
“The most literally escapist summer read you could hope for.” —The Paris Review

Is it still possible to fake your own death in the twenty-first century? With six figures of student loan debt, Elizabeth Greenwood was tempted to find out. So off she sets on a darkly comic foray into the world of death fraud, where for $30,000 a consultant can make you disappear—but your suspicious insurance company might hire a private detective to dig up your coffin...only to find it filled with rocks.

Greenwood tracks down a British man who staged a kayaking accident and then returned to live in his own house while all his neighbors thought he was dead. She takes a call from Michael Jackson (no, he’s not dead—or so her new acquaintances would have her believe), stalks message boards for people contemplating pseudocide, and gathers intel on black market morgues in the Philippines, where she may or may not obtain some fraudulent goodies of her own. Along the way, she learns that love is a much less common motive than money, and that making your death look like a drowning virtually guarantees that you’ll be caught. (Disappearing while hiking, however, is a way great to go.)

Playing Dead is a charmingly bizarre investigation in the vein of Jon Ronson and Mary Roach into our all-too-human desire to escape from the lives we lead, and the men and women desperate enough to give up their lives—and their families—to start again.

About Elizabeth Greenwood

Elizabeth Greenwood is the author of Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud. Her work has appeared in The New York TimesVICE, O, the Oprah Magazine, LongreadsGQ, and others. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Esil

I thought I would like Playing Dead more than I did. Really, how could a book about people faking their own deaths not be interesting? Surely, most people fantasize every now and then about disappearing from the stress or tedium of their lives to reinvent themselves as someone else? But there's a bi......more

pseudocide pseu·do·cide (so͞o′dō-sīd′) n. The act of faking one's suicide or death. I've thought about disappearing before. It was just a little flutter of a thought that lasted a few seconds before I came back to reality. But I get it. I get why some would want an out that doesn't include actual death......more


Quotes

"A lively romp."
— The Boston Globe

"Grim fun."
— The New York Times

"A delightful read for anyone tantalized by the prospect of disappearing without a trace."
— Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake

"Exuberant and ironic, witty and compassionate, various and keenly-focused, Playing Dead is eccentric investigative journalism. A terrific subject, where the deadly (excuse the pun) serious and absurdly comic meet and mesh."
— Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland

"Mesmerizing."
Elle

"Riveting."
— The Huffington Post

"A beguiling foray into the wacky yet somehow ever-fascinating realm of death fraud."
— Maria Konnikova, New York Times bestselling author of The Confidence Game

"Elizabeth Greenwood is as entertaining and gifted an archeologist of subcultures as she is an able explorer of issues like anonymity, the right to privacy, and how much control people can ever exert over their identities. An energetic and insatiable writer, her generous mind infuses every page of this astonishing book."
— Heidi Julavits, author of The Folded Clock

"The most literally escapist summer read you could hope for."
— The Paris Review

"Wonderfully weird."
— Deborah Blum, New York Times bestselling author of The Poisoner's Handbook