Death Becomes Us

Woody Allen once said, "I am not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens." For most of my life, that was my mantra. Almost everyone with a pulse fears death, but not everyone fears life. With crippling social anxiety, I feared both. But after an accidental call to a funeral home during my mid-life crisis trip to grad school, I reluctantly embarked on a journey to explore professions that dealt with death in order to come to terms with my own mortality. The result of this quirky trip is Death Becomes Us, a humorous memoir about what happens when a middle-aged, anxiety-filled, life-avoider attempts to investigate the last taboo of American culture. What started as an overzealous MFA thesis ended with my discovery that awareness of death, the one thing that collectively scares people the most is also the one thing that helped me to finally live. During my two years of research, I encountered an embalmer afraid of dying, a grieving EMT, an upbeat Hospice counselor, and a hopeful death row inmate. Emotionally I went from grieving at a funeral for my cigarettes to crying over a dead man's body just minutes after his execution; I went from avoidance and fear to eventual immersion and acceptance. I realized the importance of looking at death to fully realize the finite nature of life."This is death "lite" and it's an enjoyable, fun read, full of hilarious, touching and telling details as well as vividly depicted scenes and characters who literally jump off the page, regardless of their mortal status. Judge, 24th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards"This book will grab you from the first sentence, and hold you to the end, and along the way, Skjolsvik teaches us something on practically every page."David R. Dow, Cullen Professor, University of Houston Law Center and author of Things I've Learned from Dying"An evocative and insightful exploration of the neglected reality of death in American Society. Gently humorous and heartfelt."Sister Helen Prejean, Author of Dead Man Walking Pamela Skjolsvik has been published in Creative Nonfiction, Witness, Ten Spurs, The Moment, The Dallas Morning News' Death Penalty Blog, Writer's Digest, CNN and in the anthology Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives. Death Becomes Us, which began as her MFA thesis at Goucher College, won second place at The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference and was an honorable mention in the 24th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards. Pamela has been interviewed on several podcasts (Death! The Podcast, The Drunken Odyssey, Dan Reads Books, The Passionista's Podcast and the Trust Tree Podcast) and was featured on NPR's Think with Krys Boyd in 2016.In March of 2020, Pamela founded the 2020 Quarantine Book Club on Facebook to assist debut authors affected by the pandemic. The book club now has over 1400 members and was featured on Fox 4 in Dallas and in Reader's Digest.