Mary Roach – Author Biography
Early Life
Mary Roach was born on March 20, 1959, in Hanover, New Hampshire. She studied psychology at Wesleyan University and began her career writing for magazines, developing a specialty in offbeat science and humor columns. Her curiosity about the subjects everyone else avoids became her trademark.
Career
Roach’s breakthrough came with Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), an irresistible tour of what happens to bodies after death — from crash-test research to composting. The book was a bestseller and established her formula: take a taboo or overlooked subject, research it exhaustively, and write about it with wit and humanity. She has since applied the method to the afterlife, sex, space travel, digestion, and war.
Major Works
Stiff (2003), Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (2010), Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (2013), and Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (2016).
Writing Style and Themes
Roach writes popular science with a comedian’s timing and a reporter’s fearlessness — she volunteers for the experiments, interviews the eccentric researchers, and asks the questions everyone is thinking. Her great theme is the body in extremis: dead, aroused, weightless, digesting, under fire. She treats undignified subjects with complete dignity, finding wonder in the unglamorous machinery of being human. Her footnotes alone are worth the price of admission.
Legacy
Roach is one of the most beloved science writers alive, credited with proving that humor and rigor are not enemies. Her books are book-club staples and science-communication models, and she has inspired a generation of writers to tackle the subjects polite science writing avoids. She makes the gross fascinating and the fascinating hilarious.
