Before anyone knew our name, a handful of reporters, writers, and deathcare advocates trusted GraveSite with their work. For Halloweek 2026’s theme, Over My Dead Body, we asked this Early Grave crew to each pick a book about disposition, or what happens to your body after you die. A warning or welcome, depending on your mood: No one picked a beach read.
Invented or excavated, each of these worlds hands someone else the power to decide what a body is worth — that same power we traced throughout the week through real crematories, detention centers, and statehouses.
The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail (2015)
Book by Jason De Leon
Contributor recommendation by Sarah Chavez, the executive director of the Order of the Good Death, and contributor to GraveSite’s “How To Get Your Affairs in Order” guide and HellFireside Chat
Death is political. Jason De León’s The Land of Open Graves exposes how U.S. immigration policy makes certain deaths not just possible, but predictable. By documenting how border enforcement pushes migrants toward dangerous stretches of the Sonoran Desert, De León reveals the deadly consequences of a system that turns suffering into policy and treats some lives as expendable. Using ethnography, archaeology, and forensic science, readers are brought face-to-face with the people and stories left behind. It’s a devastating reminder that death isn’t always just an inevitable fact of life; sometimes, it’s the consequence of political choices.
More on Sarah Chavez: She’s currently working on an article called “To Rot Is to Resist,” an exploration of how our fear of bodily decay reflects deeper cultural anxieties about gender, race, and control.
You can find her on Instagram: @sarah_calavera
and Bluesky: @sarahcalavera.bsky.social
The Woods All Black (2024)
By Lee Mandelo
Contributor recommendation by Becky Robison, death doula, author of My Parents are Dead: What Now?, and “Dear Reaper” advice columnist.
Trans people have always existed, and they’ve always been demonized by those who see bodily autonomy as a threat to their power. What if they chose to become the monsters that politicians and preachers claim they are? This horror novel, set in 1920s Appalachia, follows Frontier Nursing Service member Leslie Bruin into a small Kentucky town where he finds a God-fearing population suspicious of his medical capabilities, not to mention his unwomanly appearance and behavior. When Les meets another young queer person threatened by the town’s hard-hearted minister, he has to decide whether to save his own skin — or help this new friend fight back.
More on Becky Robison: She’s simultaneously working on a nonfiction book proposal about green burial and a vampire novel that isn’t really about vampires; for the latest, you can subscribe to her weekly newsletter The Columbarium.
You can find her on Instagram: @deadparentswhatnow
and Bluesky: @deadparentswhatnow
2BR02B (1962)
By Kurt Vonnegut
Contributor recommendation by Kristine Gill, writer of GraveSite article “World’s First Body Farm Triples Human Remains Caseload”
Originally published in 1962, this piece of speculative fiction looks at a future world in which aging has been eradicated. That’s the good news. The bad news is that in order to keep the population in check, someone has to volunteer to die each time a new person is born. What happens, then, when you find out your wife is having triplets?
More on Kristine Gill: Kristine Gill is a freelance writer who co-hosts a fiction podcast on craft called Why Is This Good? where she dissected this Vonnegut story. New episodes come out twice a month.
The Vegetarian (2016)
By Han Kang
Recommendation by Xintian Tina Wang, writer of GraveSite feature “I Didn’t Believe in the Beyond. Then a Medium Helped Me Talk to My Dead Grandfather.”
What happens when a woman decides that her body no longer belongs to anyone but herself? In The Vegetarian, Nobel Prize–winning South Korean author Han Kang explores this question through a woman’s seemingly simple decision to stop eating meat. What begins as a personal choice becomes an act of rebellion against the expectations imposed by her husband, family, and society. Through haunting, surreal imagery, Han exposes the violence beneath patriarchal ideas of femininity, obedience, and desire. The novel is a disturbing meditation on bodily autonomy and the consequences women face when they refuse to conform, even within their most intimate relationships.
More on Xintian Tina Wang: Tina Wang is currently working on a few arts and culture features for magazines while getting into the holiday spirit by burning cinnamon incense every day.
You can find her on Instagram: @tina_wangxt