I liked reading this book. It is a short novella of a daughter interviewing her father on his career as an embalmer. Each short chapter is a different death. Although the book is short it is beautifully written. Enjoy

As strange as the book was I found it very interesting. It’s a subject people don’t really discuss openly. The book was well written and flowed well. It was easy to read

The Embalmer by Anne-Renée Caillé has been translated from its original French. Given the layout, I'm guessing the little vignettes are poem stories, though in English they are more prose. It is the musings of a daughter regarding her father's job as an embalmer, how he joined those mysterious ranks, and unusual cases he shared.

It's interesting to read these one-shot cases- peaceful death at home, death by grenade, asphyxiation by fridge. Homicide, suicide, natural death. None of it matters to the embalmer. A good embalmer is an artist, making the dead look alive. I had a vague notion of what the job entailed, but no ida the lengths they may go with reconstruction, or how reconstruction worked. To me, the wildest case mentioned was the suicide victim who set her house on fire, then locked herself in a basement fridge and shot herself. The snapshot about organ donation and how harvested eyes are handled was somewhat squeamish for me. I am missing an eye, and since its loss, I'm hella sensitive over eye stuff.

This was a beautiful look at a difficult subject most people prefer to avoid. Whether the original was more poetic in style, this was still wonderfully written. Highly recommended!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Coach House Books for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the copy of 'The Embalmer' in exchange for an honest and fair review.

This short, little book is amazing! I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in what happens to our bodies after we passed away.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley.


I absolutely adore books like this. intriguing, interesting, and such a fast/easy read.

read it!

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a review.
A bizarre read! Short, punchy and imaginative, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it. Part a memoir about the authors father and part about the act of embalming.
I’ve left this review for a while after finishing because it’s such an usually read I wasn’t sure whether I enjoyed it or not! I don’t think it’s for people who don’t like things being too ‘wordy’ but the language used is poetic and beautiful in places. I’d recommend for lovers of the unusual!

The Embalmer is tough to describe. It is a slim and slightly odd story of a father who worked in the embalming industry and the memorable experiences that he passed onto his daughter. Each vignette is short and tells us the story of another death, usually described in a remote fashion (until we reach the end and it becomes more personal). This was a quick and enjoyable read.

"There are obviously more anonymous deaths with nothing that stands out-they aren't included here, here are the ones that stand out..."

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Coach House Books for the chance to read this book in exchange for a review.

This was a quick, but very different read. Written in a more poetry-style narrative, the concepts in this book are presented very uniquely. This was honestly a weird read for me, but in a way that makes it hard to explain to others. I do think it should be recommended for those interested in different styles of writing and the macabre.

I read this strange little book (essentially a list, almost a poem, of bodies embalmed by her father) in about 30 minutes while eating lunch - with only a few sentences, and sometimes only a few words, per page, it’s a quick read. I didn’t enjoy it, but not because of the gruesome descriptions of dead bodies (though I don’t know if I recommend reading it while eating lunch. Some images are rough.); I don’t know if it is a lost in translation issue, but I really didn’t enjoy the narration. It was like it was trying too hard to be beautiful and haunting and fell flat. I didn’t find it compelling or moving or captivating. In fact, the only reason I finished it was because I received it for free from Coach House/NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and didn’t feel like it was fair to call my review honest if I didn’t read the whole thing. If you are interested in a super interesting book about dead bodies, I recommend Stiff by Mary Roach.

It was interesting to see what embalmers do, but would have actually preferred stories as opposed to short snippets of information. I do not really feel that this was adequate information to present in publication form. Thanks for the ARC, Net Galley.

Enjoyed this book but wouldn’t rush to reccomend it or buy a physical copy. It was a cool unique concept but I found it dragged in parts and had a hard time really getting into it.

The Embalmer is a short book around 80 pages or so. It's not as macabre as I was hoping but it is rather interesting. The book centers around a daughter who has interviewed her father on his job as an embalmer. It details an array of cases he has come across in this lifetime told in short yet powerful passages.

The writing style is more of poetic form which isn't something I care for much but after a few pages in no longer became distracting as the story lines unfolded. It's a quick read for those who find this subject interesting.T

Unforgettable and extraordinary, this short, short novel is a subtle and realistic study of death and memory. Poetic in a ghostly way, tender and stark. Don't miss.

Very short book but packs a punch. The formatting of the book is excellent. Each dedication to a person has something about their death. This book may not be for everyone due to the subject matter. Outstanding read. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book. Although I received the book in this manner, it did not effect my opinion of this book nor my review.

The premise for this was really interesting but it just didn't deliver. I found my mind wandering when reading it and I ended up stopping at 75%. The idea about hearing stories from the embalming tales was cool and there were some that really stood out but this was overall a meh book.

The shortest book I read this month was an e-book from Netgalley which was only around 80 pages or so. It was one of the quickest and most unusual reads of December and it has the same theme of death, embalming and working in the death industry as Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. However, within The Embalmer we get very short, often less than one page, of the thoughts and experiences of a daughter asking her father about his work within the death industry. It was an unusually structured book, I wasn't expecting the very short sections and it wasn't as impactful as other reads this month but it was very quick and interesting!

This series of short almost poems, was haunting and beautifully written (I'm sure a bit was lost in translation but I still enjoyed it). Chronicling the authors stories from her father on his experiences as an embalmer. The death industry has gotten something of a renewal recently with people opening up about death, such as Carla Valentine, Mary Roach, and Caitlin Doughty, bringing to light different pieces of it. This work fits right in while being it's own original piece and style

At first I found this book hard to get into because of the writing style, each story is very short and not very detailed. However, the style quickly grew on me. Because it wasnt very detailed, it wasn't overbearing on gore and made for a good and quick read #NetGalley

This is a quick...yet anything but easy read. This upclose look at the livelihood of death is sad, repulsive, and beautiful. Glimpses of the author’s connection to the Embalmer leaves the reader wanting a deeper look.

You have to be true, to be faithful to the photograph the family sometimes leaves. I am surprised to find out this is not done consistently.

Most of us don’t like to think about what happens after death, how the embalmer prepares the body, the work required to make our loved ones look as they did in life, our ‘last look’ at our beloved who is both present in body and yet not. In this literary fiction, Anne-Renée Caillé’s narrator plumbs the depths of her father’s experiences during his time as an embalmer. What seems like a macabre subject is handled with a far more matter of a fact manner. We modern-day people are removed from death, out of sight, out of mind. While a book of only 96 pages, some of the telling made my skin crawl, not so much for gruesome horror but that lives end in the strangest and saddest of ways.

Her father, at times with ‘a list of cases on hand’, makes some of the deceased become more real by saying their names. His job, to make them who they were before the ravages of disease, accidents, murder, or even combat had his work cut out for him, and certainly there are cases where there isn’t the possibility of make-up saving the day, because only a closed casket is the option. There are indignities in dying, most of us just have to look away and let others handle the ugly details, never once giving it a thought yet knowing our time will come. Who can bear to ponder such things with so much living to do?

“The story is sensitive, they all are, but some are more disturbing.”

Through listening to her father, she wants to understand him, his choice of jobs where things are underground. Then there is illness in her own family, in her father just like his father before him but death’s movements can’t always be tracked and sometimes surprises us with the age old question, “Who is next?”

I can’t wait to read more by Anne-Renée Caillé. She is an author I will be following. I read this in one night.

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