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Cemetery Stories

Haunted Graveyards, Embalming Secrets, and the Life of a Corpse After Death

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
An insider's tour of cemetery culture—from embalming to epitaphs, restless ghosts, crimes against the dead, and more.
Admit it: You're fascinated by cemeteries. We all die, and for most of us, a cemetery is our final resting place. But how many people really know what goes on inside, around, and beyond them? Enter the world of the dead as author Katherine Ramsland talks to mortuary assistants, gravediggers, funeral home owners, and others, and find out about:
  • Stitching and cosmetic secrets used on mutilated bodies
  • Embalmers who do more than just embalm
  • The rising popularity of cremation art
  • Ghosts that infest graveyards everywhere

  • If you've ever scoffed at the high price of burying the dead, wondered how your loved ones are handled when they die, or simply stared at tombstones with morbid fascination, then let Katherine Ramsland introduce the booming industry—and strange tales—that surround cemeteries everywhere.
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      • Publisher's Weekly

        September 17, 2001
        The recent success of HBO's funeral home comedy Six Feet Under
        proves the power of the macabre over public imagination. "mused, disturbed, and delighted by the range of human behavior surrounding the subject of death," Ramsland (Ghost, Forecasts, Aug. 20; etc.) undertook a pop-anthropological survey of "cemetery culture" by interviewing graveyard caretakers, "death-care" consultants, funeral directors, grave diggers, monument dealers and mortuary assistants. This rambling, anecdotal account traces burial traditions such as embalming, cremation (30% of all funerals), corpse preparation, restorative techniques, cadaver cosmetics and unconventional funerals like the one attended by the deceased's fellow nudists. At Houston's National Museum of Funeral History and the annual National Funeral Directors Association's convention, Ramsland, a Rutgers professor, learns about mortuary schools and entrepreneurial schemes like hologram tombstones, the $65,000 mummification procedure and cemetery kiosks with touch-screen biographies of the deceased. Along with instructions on gravestone rubbing, artistic grave markers and unusual epitaphs, the book introduces "taphophiles," who visit cemeteries as a hobby. The book's closing section recounts ghastly tales of ghouls, corpse abuse, necrophilia and people buried alive, and fascinating interviews with people who grew up in funeral homes. Although it's "the corpseless soul that inspires the most fear," those with weak stomachs might want to skip the graphic description of autopsy procedures, botched reinterments and adipocere ("body cheese"). A bibliography and list of Web sites provide further resources. (Oct.)Forecast:This should see a brief spike in sales at Halloween (aided by promotion at Grim Rides, an elegant online bookstore specializing in death-related volumes .

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    • English

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