Book review: When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope
Easthope’s memoir of her experiences as a disaster manager is ‘gripping and filled with compassion’

“Lucy Easthope doesn’t look like your average superhero,” said Laura Hackett in The Sunday Times. “She describes herself as short, round, arthritic and clumsy.” And yet, like a superhero, she turns up whenever calamity strikes, and endeavours to make things better. For more than two decades, Easthope has been a disaster manager – a job that requires her to coordinate recovery efforts in the wake of major catastrophes. Her tasks in such situations range from identifying bodies and recovering victims’ personal belongings to “relocating people who have lost their homes to floods, and planning ahead for possible future disasters”. And she has been involved in the aftermath of some of the worst disasters of recent times – the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017. When the Dust Settles, her memoir of these experiences, is a “gripping account, filled with compassion”.
Easthope, who grew up in Liverpool, says it was witnessing the impact of the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 that set her on her career path, said Jasper Rees in The Daily Telegraph. She studied for a master’s in disaster management, and was then hired by a company called Kenyon International Emergency Services, where she was tasked with preparing a mortuary for British service personnel killed in Iraq. At the core of her job is a “process known as Disaster Victim Identification, which involves painstaking analysis by pathologists, anthropologists and odontologists to append a name to flesh, bone and teeth”. Inevitably, there are sections that are gruesome to read, but her account is never less than “riveting”. This is a book that will do for disaster management “what Rachel Clarke’s Dear Life has done for palliative medicine and Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt for obstetrics”.
As well as being grimly fascinating to read about, Easthope’s job is of crucial importance, said Matthew Reisz in The Observer. As she points out, if disasters are handled insensitively, it can greatly “amplify the suffering of families”. Get things right, on the other hand, and an important step will have been taken towards helping people and communities recover. So it is “somewhat dispiriting” to learn that she thinks “a slow rot” has set in in British disaster planning, with the focus shifting lately from doing what is best for the victims to prioritising the “optics” of a catastrophe. By drawing back the curtain on her “largely hidden” profession, Easthope’s “enthralling” book points the way towards a more humane approach.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Hodder & Stoughton 304pp £20; The Week Bookshop £15.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Sweden's Soft Hooligans: the fans who brought 'good vibes' to the Euros
Under the Radar Formed to create a fun fan atmosphere, the Swedish football supporter group has been bringing the party to the championship
-
Crossword: July 18, 2025
The Week's daily crossword
-
Codeword: July 18, 2025
The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
6 peaceful homes near small towns
Feature Featuring doors with local topographical maps in Oregon and a 1850s homestead-turned-house in Vermont
-
Too Much: London-set romantic comedy from Lena Dunham
The Week Recommends Megan Stalter stars as a 'neurotic' New Yorker who falls in love with a Brit
-
Apocalypse in the Tropics: a 'troubling' portrait of modern Brazil
The Week Recommends Petra Costa's sobering documentary examines the rise of right-wing evangelical Christianity in Brazilian politics
-
Murderland: a 'hauntingly compulsive' book
The Week Recommends Caroline Fraser sets out a 'compelling theory' that toxins were to blame for the 1970s serial killer epidemic
-
The 2025 James Beard Award winners
Feature Featuring a casually elegant restaurant, recipes nearly lost to war, and more
-
Film reviews: Superman and Sorry, Baby
Feature A hero returns, in surprising earnest, and a woman navigates life after a tragedy
-
Music reviews: Lorde, Barbra Streisand, and Karol G
Feature "Virgin," "The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two," and "Tropicoqueta"
-
Laura Lippman's 6 favorite books for those who crave a high-stakes adventure
Feature The Grand Master recommends works by E.L. Konigsburg, Charles Portis, and more