"As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, laying the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she has exiled herself to a life of tending watery graves as penance for a long-ago mistake that still haunts her. Meanwhile, North works as a circus performer with the Excalibur, a floating troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers, and trainers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining...

"A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people-morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners-who work in it and what led them there. We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we're so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look? Fueled by...

"A young man journeys into Sri Lanka's formerly war-torn north, and into a country's soul, in this searing novel of love and the legacy of war from the award-winning author of The Story of a Brief Marriage. "The closest we seem to get to the present are those brief moments we stop to consider the spaces our bodies are occupying, the warmth of the sheets in which we wake, the scratched surface of the window on a train taking us somewhere else..." A...

This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations. "The Optimist's Daughter" is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding...

Examines the customs and practices related to burial that have existed from ancient times to the present.

When Aaron's father dies, he must organize the funeral and give the eulogy. Keeping things civil is a problem right from the start when the undertaker makes a horrifying mistake. Then his brother, Ryan wants to be in the spotlight and refuses to pay for anything. But this is nothing compared to information received from a mysterious dwarf at the funeral who exposes way too many family secrets.

After the shocking suicide of their friend, a group of thirty-somethings reunite for his funeral and end up spending a weekend together, reminiscing about their shared pasts as children of the sixties and confronting the uncertainty of their lives as adults of the eighties.

"A practical guide to planning your funeral, including worksheets and guided journal prompts" --publisher. This workbook, intended for you to record in great detail how you want your funeral to proceed, is a practical guide with worksheets and guided journal prompts. Benjamin offers a plethora of facts, stories, and inspiration to help you think outside the coffin to ensure that your wishes are recorded for posterity. Planning for death should be...

Documents the burial process throughout the centuries and in different cultures. Includes bonus materials.

Soon after his mother's death, Matt takes a job at a funeral home in his tough Brooklyn neighborhood and, while attending and assisting with funerals, begins to accept her death and his responsibilities as a man.