All That Remains by Sue Black
Sue Black, one of the world’s leading forensic anthropologists, reflects on a lifetime spent with the dead in All That Remains — a memoir that blends science, story, and meditation on mortality.
Sue Black has spent her career among the dead. As one of the world’s leading forensic anthropologists, she has been called to war zones, mass graves, crime scenes, and classrooms. Her memoir, All That Remains: A Life in Death, is not only an account of her work but also an intimate meditation on what it means to face mortality without flinching.
Raised in Scotland, Black has dedicated decades to forensic science, teaching at the University of Dundee, and advising on some of the world’s most difficult cases of violence and disaster. She has touched thousands of human remains, studied the smallest details that bones can reveal, and carried the stories of the nameless dead back into the light.
This book is part memoir, part anatomy lesson, and part cultural reflection. It balances the rigor of science with her very personal stories of family, faith, and the simple realities of living in proximity to death. All That Remains walks the reader through the human body in stages: the skeleton, the skin, the organs, the many ways a body decomposes and transforms after death. These passages are stark but never gratuitous. Black’s prose is unembellished, often blunt, but with a reverence that softens the detail.
She is also unafraid to weave in her own story: her childhood in Scotland, her relationships, her wishes for her own death and body donation. This makes the book more than a forensic manual; it is a reflection on mortality from someone who has walked alongside it for a lifetime.
What struck me most in All That Remains was Sue Black’s unwavering commitment to honesty. She does not soften or disguise the realities of death; instead, she treats candor as a form of compassion. In her view, to speak plainly about what happens to the body is to offer dignity to the dead and clarity to the living.
Running through her writing is the reminder that the body itself is a witness. Every scar, fracture, and subtle trace in our bones becomes part of the story we leave behind. Even in silence, our bodies speak on our behalf; a truth that is both unsettling and strangely comforting.
Interwoven with these professional insights are moments of personal vulnerability. Black writes about her own mortality, her wishes for organ donation, her belief in making her death as useful as her life. These passages remind us that even the scientist who has handled countless remains must eventually face her own. And throughout the book, she offers a sharp critique of how Western culture hides death away; a cultural habit that, she argues, leaves us unprepared and fearful.
“Death is, after all, a normal part of life, and sometimes in Western cultures we hide it away when maybe what we need to do is to embrace it and celebrate it. ”
For those of us who accompany the dying, Black’s writing is a grounding reminder that death is not only spiritual and emotional; it is anatomical. It has weight, scent, texture, process. To honor death fully, we must be willing to hold both the detail and the mystery.
Reading this book, I was reminded of how often students ask, “What really happens to the body?” It can feel taboo to answer, but Black gives us permission to speak plainly and to see that plainness as a form of dignity.
This is a book for anyone willing to look more closely at what we usually turn away from. For those working at the bedside, it can provide a grounding knowledge of the body’s transformation, a kind of ballast against fear. For students and seekers, it demonstrates that science and reverence are not opposites but companions. And for the curious reader, it offers a rare gift: the chance to see death not as a secret to be hidden, but as a normal, knowable part of life.
In the Farewell Library, All That Remains sits on the shelf of Honest Companions: books that face mortality head-on, refusing to soften its edges, and yet somehow leave us with more reverence than we had before.
Farewell Library is curated by Jade Adgate, a death doula, educator, and writer. Through Farewell Fellowship, Farewell Education, and the Library, she companions the living and the dying and gathers the books, stories, and rituals that help us face mortality with reverence.
