The Seven Ages of Death by Richard Shepherd review: the surprising beauty of autopsies
Probably the best of the recent outbreak of medical and forensic memoirs is Unnatural Causes (2018) by the pathologist Richard Shepherd. In detailing dozens of the sudden or suspicious deaths he has investigated – the more famous examples include Princess Diana, Rachel Nickell and Stephen Lawrence, and the victims of Harold Shipman, 7/7 and the Bali bombings – Shepherd justified the boast that used to herald every episode of Quincy: “You are about to enter the most fascinating sphere of police work – the world of forensic medicine.”
Unlike many of the books in this genre, the exploration of the author’s personal life was more than perfunctory, with Shepherd ruminating on how the early death of his mother and his tricky relationship with his father affected the course of his life, and admitting that rummaging around in thousands of cadavers eventually brought on PTSD and suicidal urges.
But above all, Shepherd’s book was memorable because of his infectious delight in the look and feel of the inside of the human body and his painterly ability to make the bits of offal inside our bones seem suddenly rather beautiful. He humanised the pathologist, showing us not the broad-brush figure of TV crime drama who delivers a broadside of wry quips to demonstrate their detachment, but somebody possessed by death, and leaving the reader to decide how far this was admirable or alarming.
This follow-up volume offers more of the same: case studies that combine the absorbing puzzle of the pathological detective story with wonderfully lucid lectures on how the body works, interspersed with autobiographical interludes. If the juiciest parts of his life and his case-book have already been sucked dry in the previous volume, it is such a pleasure to spend time in Shepherd’s company that it hardly matters.
The structure of the book is inspired by Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man speech, with Shepherd detailing the kinds of sudden death that are most likely to occur at different stages of life. The tendency of young men to be, as Shakespeare observed, “sudden and quick in quarrel” is one major cause of death in their age group, while for the middle-aged, coming to terms with the withering of their dreams, uxoricide and suicide become more common: Shepherd notes that the cases of death by Russian Roulette he has investigated all involved men between 40 and 50, so trammelled by the quotidian stress of unrelieved responsibility that they needed the prospect of release to give them a thrill. The early years of old age, meanwhile, are dangerous because people stubbornly refuse to recognise that their capabilities are diminishing.
A few high-profile cases Shepherd worked on that didn’t feature in the previous book are discussed in detail here, including the deaths of Dr David Kelly and of Gareth Williams, the MI6 employee found locked in a hold-all in his bath; in both instances he carefully debunks the supposed evidence on which the conspiracy theorists have based their accusations of murder. But it’s the brief glimpses into the lives of ordinary people that are most memorable.
There is fascinating insider information too as Shepherd gives us his top autopsy tips (never assume anything – if the corpse appears to have died of an obvious head injury, start your examination at the feet and leave the head till last); demonstrates how his painstaking work to establish proof of guilt in murder cases can be undone in a moment by a tricksy barrister; and reveals how hundreds of autopsies may have yielded false results because the diagram of the formula used to establish time of death was printed wrongly in the standard pathology textbook.
And again, his lyrical descriptions of the inside of the human body are astonishing: he even finds cancer beautiful. (“In cross-section, [the] lungs were made of lace… And here… was the shimmering white, yellow, red and black of the tumour, its tentacles stretching through the fine filigree like elegantly gloved fingers.”) He really does make you feel that if you’ve never seen inside a human being then you’re missing out on one of the great aesthetic experiences, like somebody who has never seen a sunset or a Rembrandt.
Shepherd also offers advice on how to avoid ending up on his slab prematurely, but endearingly admits to an inability to follow it himself: he made his prostate cancer worse by ignoring the symptoms – he was “too busy to have cancer” – and admits to developing a serious drinking problem during lockdown. He has the ability to examine himself and other people with the same forensic eye that he applies to corpses – one of the many reasons why his books, though by definition morbid, feel so life-enhancing.
The Seven Ages of Death is published by Michael Joseph at ￡20. To order your copy for 0844 871 1514 call ￡16.99 or visit the Telegraph Bookshop
