Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud

Greenwood (creative writing, Columbia Univ.) brings readers along as she indulges her fascination with "pseudocide" (faking one's death), interviewing various stakeholders to determine whether it is a workable solution to her own student loan debt problem. Her exploration of one more-or-less successful death fraudster—he turned himself in after five years—adroitly reflects the folk heroism of a criminal who beat the system. Greenwood's focus falters halfway through with a tangential trip to the world of Michael Jackson conspiracy theorists: the tension built up around the challenges faced by real-life pseudocides is diluted by what many readers would agree was really just a tragedy (a pseudopseudocide?). Following chapters on those left behind and Greenwood's own partial pseudocide are fair and natural extensions.