Twentieth century philosopher J.L. Austin asked in his writing what words and phrases could do in their utterance. In this tradition, Nick Ripatrazone examines Morgan Meis and Stefanie Anne Goldberg’s fictionalized eulogy collection, Dead People, to find out what the memorializing of public figures like Kurt Cobain and Christopher Hitchens actually do in their tellings, and how the eulogy as a genre can be turned on its head.