“When the Sick Rule the World: Mortality Will Be Sexy”
A compilation of texts by Dodie Bellamy that blends essays, memoirs, and fiction. Through various subjects from her life and fictional narratives, the author explores the ailing body and its relationship to health.
In her short story “When the Sick Rule the World,” from which the book takes its title, she recounts her experience attending meetings of a group of people suffering from illnesses caused by the numerous toxins produced by the industrial world we live in, particularly in a large city. It seems almost impossible to discern whether what she recounts is autobiographical or fictional, as every detail of the story feels unreal. Most of these people are ill due to electromagnetic waves produced by connected devices, sensitive to surrounding pollution, and forced to live secularized lives in their vehicles. She also mentions Todd Haynes’s cult film, Safe, in which the main character suffers from what she calls in the film “environmental illness”. This is indeed the moment when we begin to highlight the relationships between environmental problems, ecology and health.