The plan was to retain from the original everything that still applied and to add new chapters as needed, such as the report on the Tiburon conference (“Not Selling”), an investigation of the new international funeral giants (“A Global Village of the Dead”), and an account of the failures of the Federal Trade Commission in the wake of new legislation that was written largely in reaction to the first edition of the book.
(As she reports in her introduction to this volume, we had worked on that book together in the early sixties, and had remained close friends both through a number of other publishing ventures and after our professional relationship came to an end.) A lot had changed in the funeral trade since the first edition was published, in 1963, and not many of the changes were for the better. Who, each and all, have inherited the mantle ofĪt a happy lunch with me early in 1995, Jessica Mitford-“Decca” to everyone who knew her-agreed to prepare an updated version of her classic work The American Way of Death. “Witty and penetrating-it speaks the truth.”ĭedicated to Karen Leonard, Lisa Carlson, “Brilliant… hilarious… A must-read for anyone planning to throw a funeral in their lifetime.” With its hard-nosed consumer activism and a satiric vision out of Evelyn Waugh’s novel The Loved One, The American Way of Death Revisited will not fail to inform, delight, and disturb. The American Way of Death Revisited confronts new trends, including the success of the profession’s lobbyists in Washington, inflated cremation costs, the telemarketing of pay-in-advance graves, and the effects of monopolies in a death-care industry now dominated by multinational corporations. Just before her death in 1996, Mitford thoroughly revised and updated her classic study.
When first published in 1963 this landmark of investigative journalism became a runaway bestseller and resulted in legislation to protect grieving families from the unscrupulous sales practices of those in “the dismal trade.” Only the scathing wit and searching intelligence of Jessica Mitford could turn an exposé of the American funeral industry into a book that is at once deadly serious and side-splittingly funny. It should be updated and reissued each decade for our spiritual health.” “Mitford’s funny and unforgiving book is the best memento mori we are likely to get.
Genre: nonfiction The American Way of Death Revisited Jessica Mitford