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Loading... The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade (1997)by Thomas Lynch
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Thomas Lynch is a second-generation Irish Catholic that grew up in the midwest into the family tradition of undertaking. He has quite a way with words, being a published poet, and these short biographical stories infused with lessons and ideals have a beautiful poignancy that made even a common story seem somewhat profound. However, I found that he focused a lot more on his personal life and religion rather than his career in the funeral business than I expected and since the main reason I wanted to read this book was to get a personal view of the funeral trade, I was a bit disappointed. I did like his stories about Ireland and the differences between how people view death and the dying between the two countries, but I'm not Catholic or at all religious so the strong religious overtones were sometimes too much for me. Overall, a very interesting read but not quite what I hoped for. ( ) Thomas Lynch's writing--in this book and others--is fantastic. I read this many years ago, but have been thinking about it again recently, and would like to re-read it. He writes about a very delicate subject with insight, compassion, and, amazingly, humor. Couldn't get into it. Maybe the narrator? County Clare while in County Clare. What it's like to be a funeral director, written by a poet. Much better than I'm making it sound no reviews | add a review
"Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople." So opens this singular and wise testimony. Like all poets, inspired by death, Thomas Lynch is, unlike others, also hired to bury the dead or to cremate them and to tend to their families in a small Michigan town where he serves as the funeral director. In the conduct of these duties he has kept his eyes open, his ear tuned to the indispensable vernaculars of love and grief. In these twelve pieces his is the voice of both witness and functionary. Here, Lynch, poet to the dying, names the hurts and whispers the condolences and shapes the questions posed by this familiar mystery. So here is homage to parents who have died and to children who shouldn't have. Here are golfers tripping over grave markers, gourmands and hypochondriacs, lovers and suicides. These are the lessons for life our mortality teaches us. No library descriptions found. |
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