Waubonsee Community College

American afterlife, encounters in the customs of mourning, Kate Sweeney

eng

Includes bibliographical references

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

American afterlife

bibliography

841228395

Kate Sweeney

encounters in the customs of mourning

What happens after someone dies depends on our personal stories and on where those stories fall in a larger tale--that of death in America. It's a powerful tale that we usually keep hidden from our everyday lives until we have to face it. American Afterlife by Kate Sweeney reveals this world through a collective portrait of Americans past and present who find themselves personally involved with death: a klatch of obituary writers in the desert, a funeral voyage on the Atlantic, a fourth-generation funeral director--even a midwestern museum that takes us back in time to meet our death-obsessed Victorian progenitors. Each story illuminates details in another until something larger is revealed: a landscape that feels at once strange and familiar, one that's by turns odd, tragic, poignant, and sometimes even funny

American ways of death -- Gone, but not forgotten -- Dismal trade : Sarah Peacock, memorial tattoo artist, Under the skin -- The cemetary's cemetary -- Dismal trade : Kay Powell, obituary writer, The doyenne speaks -- The last great obit writers' conference -- Give me that old-time green burial -- Dismal trade : Oana Hogrefe, memorial photographer Memory maker -- The house where death lives -- Dismal trade : Lenette Hall, owner, The urngarden, The business at the back of the closet -- With the fishes -- Dismal trade : Anne Gordon, funeral chaplain Funerals are fun -- Death by the roadside