by Todd Harra

NONFICTION. HISTORY. DEATH. AMERICAN CULTURE

How have we come so far from where we started? Early American colonies practiced care of the dying and care of the dead within their homes. The same women who attended the births and the birthing mother also attended the deaths and the dying person. Just as the new mother was cared for with the loving hands (hopefully) and herbal knowledge of the midwife, so too were the newly deceased. Today, dying is largely viewed as a failure of the medical complex. The deceased is wheeled, zipped in a body bag, on a metal gurney out the back basement door of the hospital, to be cared for by professionals in a mock home we deem appropriate for this event. We exhaust our wages attempting to honor the dead in a way we never did culturally when they were alive: with elaborate burial practices often including embalming, reconstruction, open casket viewings, expensive caskets, all while heaping tons of fresh flowers upon the whole scene. But how did this modern practice emerge from our humble and home-based roots? In his new book, “Last Rites: the Evolution of the American Funeral”, funeral director and embalmer, Todd Harra explores precisely this.

The first few chapters of this book are my favorite: they are fascinating, compelling and often shocking. In fact, I have pages of scribbled journal entries that are highly disturbing facts about historical practices of care of the dead. I was particularly sucked in by the tales of the early Egyptian, Greek and Roman funerary rites and was reading with rapt attention until about Chapter 5 when Harra got lost in the weeds of American history. While I finished the book, I did so with a skimming eye and perusal back to the topics that caught it. But for those of us interested in the evolution of care of the dead, this book is an in-depth primer that is rich in history, full of shocking stories and details the slow unraveling of our own American funeral traditions.

The Farewell Library is where Jade blends her love of literature with her passion for death literacy and grief awareness. Jade offers a monthly Death & Grief-focused virtual book club, book reviews of the latest Death and Grief centered books and tips and tricks for aspiring death workers and others standing at the sacred thresholds of death and grief. Please support this series by ordering from Bookshop.org