I had the pleasure of walking into my local bookstore a few weeks ago to meet a former death investigator doing a book signing for his recently released novel, about the cases he had encountered while working in Atlanta.
While it was not the typical sort of thing I would flock to for reading, as I tend to be squeamish about blood and guts narratives, I found myself wanting to learn more about the kind of man who could endure the skin-crawling profession.

Joseph Scott Morgan, author of “Blood Beneath My Feet,” is amiable, down to earth, and easy to talk to — quite a contrast from the tone and topics of his often disturbing but consistently engrossing book.

“Blood Beneath My Feet” may be a gruesome account of various suicides, homicides and accidental deaths, but it is also an honest, moving and eloquent memoir of a man who routinely had to confront what most of us would never dare face. Beyond the image we may have about death investigators — whether it is the glamorous versions “depicted on TV and films in ways that intrigue and repulse us in equal measure,” as Morgan states — he lays bare how much witnessing death day after day affected him.

Even the smallest mundane things in everyday life, even ones we normally enjoy or find comfort in, could tie into each brutal, senseless case he witnessed. Morgan reveals his ever-affected soul behind the gradually decaying armor of his investigator facade, and eventually the job became so taxing on him mentally and emotionally that he was advised to leave the profession for medical reasons.

He now teaches death investigation to undergraduate students at North Georgia College & State University. To tell of his life as a death investigator, son, father and teacher is both a soul-purging journal for him, and an enlightening parable for those who are willing to follow him into death’s domain.

Intertwined with the cases that Morgan investigated are excerpts from his childhood and early life, which combine both heavy hardships (including a rage-filled destructive father, a physically and emotionally abusive stepfather, the deaths of beloved family members and close friends) and the subtle moments of happiness (enjoying New Orleans-style beans and rice, the smell of his grandmother’s gardenias, the lullabies sung to him by his mother).

He ties in these moments to many of his cases, which makes it impossible for him to truly distance or separate himself from the deceased. Whether it is a mother’s sorrow at receiving the news her son is dead, or pondering why crazy people act as they do, he can relate a memory or emotion with every victim or mourner that he meets.

We can only begin to understand the weight of a man who must carry a piece of every grief-stricken individual he has ever crossed paths with. Yet Morgan describes these instances with such clarity and empathy that we as readers can perhaps identify, in a small way, with some tragedy or loss from our own lives.

What truly struck me about “Blood Beneath My Feet” is the strong voice and almost poetic style of the novel.

Death itself is treated as a character, (akin to John Donne’s poem “Death Be not Proud”) rather than just a concept, who can be both a seductive, enticing presence as well as “the slobbering drunk at the office Christmas party” that you simply can’t avoid.

People whom Morgan only interacts with for mere moments are given distinct character and illustration, and the sheer grotesqueness of the crime scenes are vividly recounted yet given their proper respect and even profound reflection. Even for those who may recoil from the subject of death, this is a novel worth every step of the journey.

Alison Reeger Cook is a Gainesville resident whose Off the Shelves book review appears every other week in Sunday Life. Know of a good book to review? Email her to tell her about it. Her column appears biweekly and on gainesvilletimes.com/life.