The Depositions: New and Selected Essays on Being and Ceasing to Be

Description

For nearly four decades, as a poet, essayist, and small-town funeral director, Lynch has probed relations between the literary and mortuary arts. This collection of essays showcase Lynch's signature blend of memoir, meditation, gallows humor, and poetic precision. They illuminate not only how we die, but also how we live. -- adapted from jacket;"A wry and compassionate selection of essays reflecting on mortals and mortality, from the acclaimed author of The Undertaking. For nearly four decades, poet, essayist, and small- town funeral director Thomas Lynch has probed relations between the literary and mortuary arts. His life's work with the dead and the bereaved has informed four previous collections of nonfiction, each exploring identity and humanity with Lynch's signature blend of memoir, meditation, gallows humor, and poetic precision. The Depositions provides an essential selection from these masterful collections, as well as new essays in which the space between Lynch's hyphenated identities-as an Irish American, undertaker-poet-is narrowed by the deaths of poets, the funerals of friends, the loss of neighbors, intimate estrangements, and the slow demise of a beloved dog. Meanwhile, the press of the author's own mortality sharpens a curiosity about where we come from, where we go, and what it means. In The Depositions, Lynch continues to illuminate not only how we die, but also how we live"-- Foreword by Alan Ball -- from THE UNDERTAKING : The undertaking Gladstone Crapper The right hand of the Father The golfatorium Tract -- from BODIES IN MOTION AND AT REST : Introduction Bodies in motion and at rest Fish stories Y2Kat The way we are Reno -- from BOOKING PASSAGE : Introduction- The ethnography of everyday life The brother The same but different The sisters Godhelpus -- from THE GOOD FUNERAL : How we come to be the ones we are The theory and practice of cremation -- NEW ESSAYS : Introit Miracles Moveable and steadfast feasts Whence & whither The done thing.