“Obituaries are about life, about the lives that people have lived. Death only figures in one sentence.” — Sam Roberts
This is, remarkably, episode 3,000 of Keen On America — three thousand conversations since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010. Fitting, then, that today’s guest has written nearly 1,500 obituaries for the New York Times. Sam Roberts is a reporter on the Times’ obituaries desk and has a new book about the art of the obit entitled Are They Dead Yet?
We recorded this a week before airtime, so I began by asking who’s going to die in the interim. He wasn’t sure — but noted that the Times keeps 2,000 advance obituaries ready. There are, he added, never enough. Beware, though, the Rockefeller curse. Roberts wrote David Rockefeller’s advance obituary, whereupon he learned that three other Times reporters had written Rockefeller advance obits — and all three were dead. (Rockefeller made it to 101.)
Borrowing from Citizen Kane, Roberts hunts for the Rosebud moment, the epiphany that defines a life. He hunts for the soul of the subject, not the résumé. Hence his cheerful paradox that obituaries are about life, whereas death only figures in one sentence. As for famous last words, he’s a skeptic — most were composed later by better writers. The real ones, he suspects, are “help,” or “get me a drink.”
And the obituarist’s own Rosebud moment? We have to go back to Brooklyn when he was a six-year-old boy. His father walked him to the corner to watch the Rosenberg funeral procession pass. “I want you to see history as it’s happening,” he explained. Half a century later, Roberts got David Greenglass to admit he had lied about the testimony that sent his own sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the electric chair.
From the Times’ Portraits of Grief after 9/11, Roberts learned the book’s deepest lesson. There are no ordinary lives. Who would you miss more — your mayor or your mailman? Or maybe your obit writer (or even your podcaster)? Sam promised that if he died before airtime, he’d call. The phone hasn’t rung. I’m still going too. On to episode 3,001.
Five Takeaways
• 2,000 Obits, Never Enough. The Times keeps 2,000 advance obituaries updated — never enough. Three reporters wrote Rockefeller’s advance obit and predeceased him. Nobel read his own — and endowed the Prizes.
• The Rosebud Method. From Citizen Kane: hunt the epiphany that bent the life. The soul, not the résumé — Wikipedia has chronology. Death gets one sentence.
• Giuliani, Trump, Epstein. The Giuliani file is the hardest of his career — a soul, sold, says Andrew. The Trump obit is already written. 150,000 die daily; three or four make the Times.
• The Rosenberg Rosebud. Age six, Brooklyn: “I want you to see history as it’s happening.” Decades later, Greenglass admitted to Roberts he lied his sister Ethel into the electric chair.
• No Ordinary Lives. Portraits of Grief taught the lesson; Carlyle’s spade man and a front-page Poirot obit prove it. Who would you miss more — your mayor or your mailman?
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Buy Are They Dead Yet? at rizzolibookstore.com
Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: 2,000 advance obits, never enough
00:01:58 The Rockefeller curse: outliving your obituarist
00:03:00 Rosebud: the moment that defines a life
00:06:02 Famous last words (mostly fake)
00:08:10 Should the living read their own obits?
00:10:22 The Trump obit is already written
00:10:48 Giuliani: an obituarist’s hardest case
00:12:52 “To write Giuliani, you need Shakespeare”
00:15:15 Epstein, Bush, and posthumous reputations
00:17:13 The Rosenbergs: watching history pass in Brooklyn
00:18:26 “How’s Arthur doing?” “So-so.”
00:22:34 Saroyan: bet your life we do
00:24:19 “He was only 75”: the Richardson call
00:27:17 A favorite: the mountain climber and the stairs
00:29:14 Nobel reads his own obituary
00:31:18 Rashomon: one obit per customer
00:32:12 The obituary of Jesus Christ, AD 33
00:33:41 Carlyle’s choice: Hannibal or the spade man
00:34:48 Hercule Poirot, front page
00:36:45 Portraits of Grief: no ordinary lives
00:40:54 Wikipedia lacks the soul
00:41:42 What Sam wants in his own obit
00:43:47 “If not, I’ll call you”