New York Review of Books Review

One can well imagine a publicity director swooning over this book concept: A young, hip (you read that right) mortician, who hosts the serious-but-entertaining web series "Ask a Mortician," is writing a memoir about her beginnings in the death industry. It opens with her first day on the job at a crematory, flashes back to some relevant origins - the early memory of another child's gruesome death - and then moves forward as the narrator learns from exposure to bodies and to the people who care for them. Everyone from Goth teenagers to funeral-planning elders will rush to read this. Cue cash register ka-chings. But the book is more consequential than its spin potential, and though it contains frank descriptions of decay, body fluids and human ashes, it is ultimately more philosophical than lurid, more cultural critique than exposé. While the narrative is engaging and even wicked, it is also the least important element in a work that uses private experience to illustrate public insight, which in Doughty's case is this: By systematically insulating ourselves from death's physical manifestations, Americans are deprived emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and - not to be dismissed - financially, in ways our ancestors would have abhorred. Never fear: Doughty's aim is not to put herself out of a job, but more to change its nature. Families should in effect be their own funeral "directors," caring for their deceased in personal rather than institutional spaces, with the help of professionals who follow, rather than take, the lead. NATALIE KUSZ is the author of the memoir "Road Song." She teaches at Eastern Washington University.