Erica Buist-This Party's Dead
A traumatic encounter with a dead body, followed by a pandemic (more dead bodies) and a crippling case of death anxiety sent this investigative journalist around the world chasing down the lead.
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Erica Buist: This Party's Dead
JA: What inspired you to write about death and dying?
It was a calamity of things. First, my partner and I found his father dead after eight days. It was traumatic - but afterwards two things really caught my attention. One, my own breakdown. I was so terrified of death that I ended up agoraphobic and stalking everyone I knew online to check if they hadn’t also dropped dead. Two, everyone else’s reactions when the topic of death was brought up. Having no language to deal with it, they were just desperate for it to go away. The final straw was when I saw articles about death cafes in the news. At first I thought how great that people are meeting up and talking about death! Then I thought, wait - talking about death makes HEADLINES in this country!
JA: What does death literacy mean to you?
For me it’s about normalising the term. People connect every mention of death with grief and terror. While wanting to avoid something that doesn’t feel good makes sense, the answer is not to avoid something that will definitely happen. Talking about death in a positive framework, normalises it and eventually helps stop negative knee jerk reactions.
JA: What is your current state of mind?
The word that comes to mind is “striving”. I’m working on that. Sometimes wish I could be the sort of person who has the courage to disappear to a Greek island and live day to day until the end, just content to be. Maybe one day!
JA: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Bed, heated blanket, watching something funny, snuggling with my partner and having our dog and cat curl up on the bed with us.
JA: What do you believe is life’s most essential lesson?
Gosh. I don’t feel qualified to answer that! Stoic principles are helpful. For example,“is the thing I’m upset about in my control and if not, what if I decided it’s fine, and let it go?” It doesn’t work for everything and definitely not the philosophy to go with if you’re being harassed or racially profiled, but super helpful for things like “what if I don’t get this job?” or “yikes I’m going to die one day!”
JA: Do you have a favorite quote?
I have agonised over this question! I have so many in my notes app - funny quotes, wise quotes, stunningly succinct explanations of complex concepts, beautiful descriptions… so decided to answer NO- I do not have just one!
JA: What are you reading, what’s on your bedside table?
What I’m reading is always heavily influenced by what I’m writing. I just wrote a 10 minute play about a group of older women who, angry at the way they’ve become invisible in their middle age, decide to use their invisibility to shoplift. I’m now expanding it into a full-length play. So currently on my bedside table is The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. a book about the cultural disdain for middle aged women, and two books about how Victorian women became mediums as a way to make their own living independently from men. There’s also Always Take Notes, which interviews writers about their routines, and a book about story structure: Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison. Also an audiobook about stoicism. Is that too many books?
JA: Do you have a favorite writer or book?
Good god, no, can’t commit to only one. For nonfiction/investigation, I absolutely love Jon Ronson - an Amazon review of my book compared me to him and it made my day. I loved In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, I think it’s the first book I finished then immediately went back and started again. Yellowface by R.F Kuang was brilliant - after reading the book I promptly bought the audiobook and listened to it twice. And I’m a big fan of short stories.
JA: What book would you like to be buried with?
Well it’s no good being in the ground with me and don't picture myself being buried as a full body, so I don't picture how any book would fit physically.
JA: What is your exit plan? How would you like to die?
We only really die of three things in the west: cancer, heart disease and stroke. I once interviewed a doctor who told me most doctors sign a DNR, which I think should be on posters in the hospital. I mean come on, if the chef didn’t recommend the clams, you’d listen! I asked him how he’d like to die and he said heart attack, boom, quick, no resuscitation. I’m a journalist, I try to find good sources - so I’ll trust him, I’ll go with that. And hopefully I’ll have prepared for it and won’t leave a mess of chores for my loved ones.
JA: If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
One of those odd cheerful people who are just content with the world as it is, content with their life as it is. One of those people who are baffled by all the garment-rending they see happening. The sort of person who doesn’t watch the news much. The sort of person who lives somewhere sunny and never gets bored or dissatisfied, never gets the gnawing feeling that they’re failing at some nonspecific thing, never gets the feeling they’re wasting time because time is there in abundance when we know we simply get what we get. Does this person exist? Maybe not, yet but that’s who I’m coming back as. I expect I’ll live to 109. I’ll probably be fried by the climate, but I’m sure I won’t mind.
JA: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
“Hey, you made it! Don’t worry - he’s here.”