From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
Description
Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Here to Eternity is an immersive global journey that introduces compelling, powerful rituals almost entirely unknown in America.
In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones' bones from cremation ashes.
With boundless curiosity and gallows humor, Doughty vividly describes decomposed bodies and investigates the world's funerary history. She introduces deathcare innovators researching body composting and green burial, and examines how varied traditions, from Mexico's Días de los Muertos to Zoroastrian sky burial help us see our own death customs in a new light.
Doughty contends that the American funeral industry sells a particular--and, upon close inspection, peculiar--set of "respectful" rites: bodies are whisked to a mortuary, pumped full of chemicals, and entombed in concrete. She argues that our expensive, impersonal system fosters a corrosive fear of death that hinders our ability to cope and mourn. By comparing customs, she demonstrates that mourners everywhere respond best when they help care for the deceased, and have space to participate in the process.
Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a story about the many fascinating ways people everywhere have confronted the very human challenge of mortality.
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Reviews
[Doughty's] fascinating tour of rituals contains liturgies that readers will surely observe as rare, macabre, unbelievable, ancient, and precious--sometimes simultaneously.
Doughty finds the humanity in others cultures' relationship with death that seems to be lacking in ours.--Justin Caffier
In her jocular but reverential tone... Doughty doesn't offer a simple morbid travelogue; instead, she digs into diverse death experiences with deep veneration and examines ties to socioeconomic, status, female identity, and religion.
She is the ideal guide on this journey, curious and respectful...Recommended for fans of the author and those with an interest in anthropology and ritual.
This slim volume, full of captivating, enlightening, and humorous tidbits, is a--dare I say--uplifting exploration of what people the world over do to withstand loss and the bite of impermanence. This is death as viewed by a mortician: profound, unavoidable, natural, and a bit funny.
Doughty is a relentlessly curious and chipper tour guide to the underworld, and the weirder things get, the happier she seems. ... [H]er dispatches from the dark side [are] doing us all a kindness--offering a picture of what we're in for, even if we'd rather not know.--Libby Copeland
Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician's fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.--Jill Lepore
Doughty writes bluntly about open-air cremations, natural burials and body composting, bringing a little more clarity and a little less mystery to the question: 'What happens to us after we die?'
[T]he macabre travelogue is a thoughtful reflection and a smart critique of the American funeral industry, with plenty of gallows humor thrown in.
This humane book gently provokes you to wonder: what exactly is your ideal funeral?
From Here To Eternity is fascinating, thought-provoking and - who would have guessed? - sometimes funny. Put it on your bucket list.
