The Undertaking

I've been reading this book called The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch. Chris and Sam had recommended this author to me for my research and it is turning out to be a very valuable resource. 

The Undertaking is a non-fiction account of Lynch's life as an "undertaker". He is from Michigan and has taken over the family funeral business. He makes his funeral home sound so small town but I found out that the Lynch family owns about six funeral homes in Michigan. The other five funeral homes are under the direction of Lynch's brothers and sisters. Sam dislikes Lynch whereas Chris believes that he is accurate.

So far, I have only covered the first few chapters but it is almost exactly what Chris has told me about the funeral business. It's just that: A business. Lynch covers everything that Chris and I had talked about. Lynch goes fromom the fascination and curiousities people have for funeral directors to the federally-mandated "unit pricing method" for funeral arrangements. 

Lynch also talks about another author who Chris had recommended. Her name is Jessica Mitford, the author of The American Way of Death. Mitford is a British author who writes about the barbarianism of American funerals. In Lynch's and Chris' opinion, her book slanders funeral directors and makes them look like money-hungry businessmen benefitting from the grief of others. 

According to Sam, Lynch is a hypocrite. I do not know exactly why yet but I am getting there. I personally think that Lynch is sort of a snob. He makes assumptions about his customers and seems to poke fun at them. In general, he has a cold, matter-of-fact way of describing his profession but I guess he's right, every job can get monotonous. He says, "The dead I bury and burn are like the dead before them, for whom time and space have become mortally unimportant" and "the dead don't care".