By BRAD WEISMANN
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other
Lessons from the Crematory
Caitlin Doughty
W.W. Norton & Company
2014
New York, London
OK, you really need to read this
one.
At first I thought it was
postmodernist standup comedy. A gag, a gimmick. A very vibrant, droll, and
personable young lady was posting videos online titled “Ask a Mortician,” and
representing something called The Order of the Good Death. Was she for real?
She is. Caitlin Doughty is a
visionary, licensed mortician with a great story to tell and an inimitable
style in which to tell it. Her new book “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” does many
things – lays out a rollicking bio of its author and details her adventures in
the death trade, all in a clear, polished and hilarious style.
If that were it, it would be
enough. However, Doughty is serious about her profession and wants to transform
it. She doesn’t want to be some kind of celebrity mortician (there are a few, actually).
Starting as a crematory operator, her experiences led her to formulate contempt
for what she sees as “our society’s structural denial of death,” aided and
abetted by the funeral industry.
Her impeccably researched
observations on our culture, which she sees as largely lacking the traditional
religious frameworks for dealing with death and mourning, ring true. “Smoke” is
a manifesto. Doughty asks for, first, thinking about death; and rethinking
attitudes about and approaches to the end of life, its observances, and
repercussions.
That Doughty overcame her
resistance to the standard way of doing things, entering the belly of the beast
and attending mortuary school, becoming licensed, is a testament to her
seriousness. As Mark Mothersbaugh said, “If you hate elevator music, you should
write your own.” Doughty, simply on the strength of her excellent rhetoric and
self-presentation, charms the reader ad presents a compelling case for solving
this problem at the same time.
Even if you do not agree with her
alternative ideas for disposing of the dead, her warm wit and clear-eyed
sincerity makes “Smoke” a pleasurable and thought-provoking read. And who
knows? With the approaching demise of 64 million Baby Boomers, maybe the time
has come for a revolution at the far end of life. Caitlin Doughty makes
excellent company there.