Oh my gosh, Caitlyn Doughty makes death completely and utterly acceptable and not scary, kinda like Mary Roach did in Stiff, Doughty grew up in Hawaii and was obsessed with death as a teenager in high school, although I don't really see her as being Goth or anything like that. She volunteered in the mortuary in her local high school and got a bachelor's in medieval history (can you get more death obsessed people then those that lived in that time period?!) - her thesis was on dead babies and the role that they played in witchcraft. While in college and after graduation, she decided to work in a crematorium so that she could see real life death. This book is a memoir of her time at Westwind, a funeral home and crematorium in San Francisco.
I admit that I'm not "functionally morbid" (which is how Doughty describes herself) or even morbid at all actually but I loved this book. First and foremost, her voice is totally amazing and she's very witty. I really enjoyed reading it - because I could HEAR her telling me the stories. It was like her voice was in my ear. I loved learning about how modernity deals with death and her comparisons to the history of death were fascinating - for such a short book, I learned a TON about death (it's history and how it is currently viewed). I also appreciated the journey that working at Westwind provided to Caitlyn. She obviously learned a lot about herself and her emotions deepened tremendously. In fact, she appeared to achieve a level of peace and acceptance of mortality that most people don't have with regards to their own imminent deaths.
That being said, this book is NOT an academic rendering of death. There aren't statistics in it and it isn't something that Caitlyn spent months and months in a library researching. There is some historical anecdote in there (and she cites sources) but ultimately, this book is about her experience with death and the history just provides the context within which she's working. I loved it nonetheless and look forward to reading other books by her.
I admit that I'm not "functionally morbid" (which is how Doughty describes herself) or even morbid at all actually but I loved this book. First and foremost, her voice is totally amazing and she's very witty. I really enjoyed reading it - because I could HEAR her telling me the stories. It was like her voice was in my ear. I loved learning about how modernity deals with death and her comparisons to the history of death were fascinating - for such a short book, I learned a TON about death (it's history and how it is currently viewed). I also appreciated the journey that working at Westwind provided to Caitlyn. She obviously learned a lot about herself and her emotions deepened tremendously. In fact, she appeared to achieve a level of peace and acceptance of mortality that most people don't have with regards to their own imminent deaths.
That being said, this book is NOT an academic rendering of death. There aren't statistics in it and it isn't something that Caitlyn spent months and months in a library researching. There is some historical anecdote in there (and she cites sources) but ultimately, this book is about her experience with death and the history just provides the context within which she's working. I loved it nonetheless and look forward to reading other books by her.
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