The Funny Thing About Death

Author: Jo Caulfield

Performing arts: comedy | Biography & True Stories | Autobiography: arts & entertainment | Memoirs | Prose: non-fiction | Family & health | Coping with illness & specific conditions | Humour

Published on 6^th June 2025 by Birlinn General (Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback / softback | 304 pages, b/w photos throughout
198mm x 129mm | 0g

'It’s a wildly satisfying and moving read ... I loved this special book' – Graham NortonSix years ago, Jo Caulfield was about to go on stage when she found out that her big sister Annie had cancer. Not the best way to start a nationwide comedy tour. But the tour turns out to be a welcome distraction for both sisters. As Jo reports back from various hotels and service stations, they revisit their childhood and adolescence while navigating Annie’s illness, learning through trial and error how to behave when someone you love gets sick.

The Funny Thing About Death is a hilarious memoir of two unconventional girls growing up in the 1970s. They didn’t fit in at the Air Force bases they were raised on or the strict convent boarding school they were sent to. The Air Force was obsessed with communists and the nuns were obsessed with the Virgin Mary, neither of which were of interest to Jo or Annie.

Annie was witty, spiky and greedy for life, rushing to be ‘interesting’ and experience adventures. She travelled the world and became a screenwriter and broadcaster.

Jo was equally rebellious but didn’t have a plan. She just wanted to be interesting like her big sister and thought it might involve eyeliner, smoking and being in a band.

Like her stand-up, Jo Caulfield’s caustic wit and razor-sharp observations make her account of life with her sister, even in the worst of times, as entertaining as it is touching and relatable.