Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty review – startling stories from the crematorium
‘Death-positive’ mortician Doughty explores attitudes to mortality in her enthralling memoir. Also reviewed: Brandy Schillace’s Death’s Summer Coat and GP Margaret McCartney’s Living With Dying
Death becomes her … Caitlin Doughty Photograph: Ryan Orange/PR
In Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, there’s a scene in which one of the characters cries out at the futility of life: “They give birth astride of a grave,” he shouts, “the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.” During an unforgettable paragraph in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes the mortician Caitlin Doughty goes further: a visibly pregnant woman attends her funeral home to arrange a cremation for her baby. “That’s a shame about your baby,” a colleague says to her, “but you’re lucky you’re pregnant, and gonna have another child.” He shouldn’t have spoken so soon: it was her unborn baby that needed the funeral.
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