FAYETTEVILLE — Mary Jumbelic, the former chief medical examiner for Onondaga County, is holding an author event at Doyle’s Books in Fayetteville from 6 to 8 p.m. tonight, Saturday, Dec. 21.
Inside that shop at 225 Brooklea Drive, Jumbelic will be reading sections from her debut literary memoir, “Here, Where Death Delights,” in honor of the one-year anniversary of that book’s release last fall, and she’ll also be signing copies for attendees and welcoming questions and comments.
She also intends to read passages from her forthcoming second book being titled “Speak Her Name,” its publication date optimistically set for sometime in the late spring of 2025.
Since her self-publishing of “Here, Where Death Delights,” which compiled individual stories about her encounters with death into a cohesive lifelong arc, Jumbelic said it’s “been a ride” and an interesting one at that, especially since she wasn’t sure at first how the book would be received.
The response from the wide spectrum of readers it resonated with, however, affirmed that she was meant to put it out there, she said, seeing as she’s been invited to do almost a talk a week in recent months, bringing that memoir to libraries, bookstores, book club gatherings, medical school classes and historian groups.
An audiobook version of “Here, Where Death Delights” also came out in August, and a Spanish translation is in the works. The book has garnered multiple accolades since its release, and now Jumbelic looks back on the support from her family and friends and the instant hospitality places like Doyle’s Books gave to her as a local author early on with gratitude.
In her second book, “Speak Her Name,” Jumbelic uses a similar framework by going through her professional and personal experiences, but it’s through the more directed lens of local homicide and domestic violence cases involving women whose names are likely to stop people in their tracks to this very day. That includes Carol Ryan, Leslie Neulander, April Gregory, Jill Cahill and others—women Jumbelic doesn’t want anyone to forget.
In addition to such nationally covered cases and their injustices, which she has strived to treat with factual, sensitive respect as always, Jumbelic includes instances of “the almosts”: volatile situations that could have gone in worse directions were it not for something that stopped them.
Jumbelic said she also talks about her own experiences in her field as a woman and the societal expectations that come with being female, but also the beauty of maternity and the giving of life in sharp contrast to the brutality of some of the violent crimes she discusses.
Jumbelic, a Fayetteville resident herself, was the county’s chief medical examiner from 1998 until her retirement in 2009.
Prior to her time as chief and deputy chief for the county office, she worked at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office in Chicago and served as coroner’s physician in Peoria, Illinois.
Through those years as a forensic pathologist, she learned how to better cope with and process death on an emotional level, how to use what she saw day to day to appreciate life more, and why she must speak up for the deceased so their deaths weren’t in vain.
“Death is a part of life,” Jumbelic said. “It touches us in one way or another, and if I can show the ups and downs and emotions of it in a storytelling fashion, but also come to a resolution or a point of optimism at the end of it, that can be helpful.”
In her career, Jumbelic was also part of federal teams and international committees evaluating the aftermaths of mass disasters such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Indian Ocean tsunami that struck Thailand, and Hurricane Katrina.
