SOCIAL SCIENCES

Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud

by Elizabeth Greenwood
S. & S. Aug. 2016. 272p. photos. ISBN 9781476739335. $26; ebk. ISBN 9781476739366. CRIME
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Greenwood (creative writing, Columbia Univ.) brings readers along as she indulges her fascination with "pseudocide" (faking one's death), interviewing various stakeholders to determine whether it is a workable solution to her own student loan debt problem. Her exploration of one more-or-less successful death fraudster—he turned himself in after five years—adroitly reflects the folk heroism of a criminal who beat the system. Greenwood's focus falters halfway through with a tangential trip to the world of Michael Jackson conspiracy theorists: the tension built up around the challenges faced by real-life pseudocides is diluted by what many readers would agree was really just a tragedy (a pseudopseudocide?). Following chapters on those left behind and Greenwood's own partial pseudocide are fair and natural extensions.
VERDICT There may be better books on disappearing and death fraud—Greenwood is led to two of her interviewees by their accounts—but this one is directed more at readers who, like the author, fantasize their problems are daunting enough, and their ability to resolve them lacking enough, that they find merely flirting with the idea invigorating.
Reviewed by Ricardo Laskaris, York Univ. Lib., Toronto , Jun 15, 2016
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