Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons From The Crematorium

Author: Caitlin Doughty

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $23.00 AUD
  • : 9781782111054
  • : Canongate Books
  • : Canongate Books
  • : February 2016
  • : 22.99
  • :
  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Caitlin Doughty
  • : Paperback
  • :
  • :
  • :
Barcode 9781782111054
9781782111054

Description

A fascinating look at the funeral industry and an exploration of how we deal with death and our dead from a young feisty, funny and fearless mortician. From her very first day at Westwind Cremation & Burial, twenty-three-year-old Caitlin Doughty threw herself into the gruesome daily tasks of her curious new profession. From caring for bodies of all shapes and sizes, picking up corpses from the hospital morgue, sweeping ashes from the cremation machines (sometimes onto her clothes) and learning to deal with mourning families, Caitlin comes face-to-face with the very thing we go to great lengths to avoid thinking about - death. But as she started to wonder about the lives of those she cremated, and found herself confounded by people's erratic reactions to death, Caitlin's feelings began to evolve in unexpected ways. Now a licensed mortician, Caitlin tells the story of her fumbling apprenticeship with the dead. Exploring our death rituals - and those of other cultures - she pleads the case for healthier attitudes around death and dying. Full of bizarre encounters, gallows humour and vivid characters (both living and very dead), this illuminating account makes this otherwise terrifying subject urgent and fascinating.

Author description

Caitlin Doughty was born and raised in Hawaii before gaining a degree in Medieval History from the University of Chicago. She currently lives in Los Angeles where she owns an alternative funeral home, Undertaking LA. She is the creator of the 'Ask a Mortician' web series, the founder of the death acceptance collective The Order of the Good Dead and co-founder of Death Salon.