Forbidden Zone - Hardcover

Lesy's theme is Americans' denial of, and fascination with, death. Slaughterhouse workers who kill animals supposedly devoid of a soul, hospice professionals who advocate "the good death," gun-toting cops with the cold attitude of hunters, morticians who display corpses as if they were merely asleepall reflect our society's institutionalization of the denial of death. The Forbidden Zone is a series of encounters with the dead and dying. Lesy visits convicts on death row, talks with homicide detectives, caretakers of AIDS patients and a mercenary killer. He takes part in killing an animal at a packing house and also interviews an Orthodox rabbi who supervises ritual slaughter. But this freewheeling report by the author of Wisconsin Death Trip and Visible Light fails to penetrate to the meaning of the deaths, the pain and suffering it coolly examines. In the end, this semilurid account becomes one more symptom of our inability to connect with death.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This first-hand account of Lesy's "journeys" to Americans who deal professionally with death (the "forbidden zone" on the map of contemporary American culture) is, of course, once removed for the reader. But the depth of the author's experiences with the soldier, the undertaker, the slaughterhouse "knocker," the pathologist, the counselor of AIDS victims, the warden of Death Row inmates, is vitally evident in this starkly descriptive text. The soul of his Jewish and family heritage pervades Lesy's writing and search to understand the ways in which these particular mortals deal with mortality. A powerful, thoughtful book. For academics, for discussion and reflection by a wide general audience.Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Agricultural & Technical Coll. Lib., Alfred
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.