Dead Serious; My Life As a Funeral Director


Book Description

For decades I have shared stories with friends and family about my years as a funeral director. The most common response was, you could write a book.My novel entitled "Dead Serious; my life as a Funeral Director." is filled with stories to make the reader experience a vast array of emotions. Some sad, some funny, and some quite frankly people might not believe, but I am dead serious.I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed the 30-year journey.




Confessions of a Funeral Director


Book Description

The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying




Mortuary Confidential


Book Description

From rookie mistakes and runaway corpses to screaming dead men and unusual requests, a collection of stories by funeral directors.




Don't Think about Death


Book Description




Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory


Book Description

"Morbid and illuminating" (Entertainment Weekly)—a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession. Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).




Over Our Dead Bodies:


Book Description

Discover a more lighthearted side of the funeral industry in this collection of real-life stories from the authors of Mortuary Confidential. Not knowing what to do, I sat on the church steps and waited. As the gravity of my failure began to well up in me, I began to cry . . . I Had Lost The Hearse! Funerals and the all the things that accompany them are traditionally somber, contemplative events in which the bereaved look to their undertaker to guide them through that most difficult of times. Of course, sometimes tradition gets thrown under the bus. From a dysfunctional family who turn their mother’s wake into a full-blown riot, to funeral crashers looking for free meals, to a horse-drawn hearse taking the dearly departed for the ride of their afterlife, these accounts from actual undertakers will have you laughing, thinking, and gasping in disbelief. A literal graveyard of wild coincidences, slapstick humor, and touching moments, Over Our Dead Bodies explores the lighter side of the dead, the living, and the lone undertaker who must make it all go as planned—even if it doesn’t. Praise for Mortuary Confidential “Outrageous funeral stories, dipped in beauty and morbid humor.” —Caleb Wilde, author of Confessions of a Funeral Director “Curious, wildly honest stories that need to be told, but just not at the dinner table.” —Dana Kollmann, author of Never Suck a Dead Man’s Hand “As unpredictable and lively as a bunch of drunks at a New Orleans funeral.” —Joe R. Lansdale, author of Moon Lake “Sick, funny, and brilliant! I love this book.” —Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of They Bite! And Rot & Ruin “These true mortuary tales are poignant—and suddenly, gaspi




Nine Years Under


Book Description

A dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming of age in a black funeral home in Baltimore Sheri Booker was only fifteen when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea her summer job would become nine years of immersion into a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, Sheri found comfort in the funeral home and soon had the run of the place. With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry. Nine Years Under offers readers an unbelievable glimpse into an industry in the backdrop of all our lives.




Mortuary Confidential


Book Description

From rookie mistakes and runaway corpses to screaming dead men and unusual requests, a collection of stories by funeral directors.




The Funeral Director's Son


Book Description

This family business is for life... In the small town of Clover, when you die, you are put to rest by Campbell and Sons Funeral Home. Unfortunately twelve-year-old Kip Campbell happens to be the only "son" in that title. And that's a problem for him since the funeral home business is the last thing he wants to inherit, even if he has a "gift" for it. See, it just so happens that Kip can talk to the dead. Well, they talk to him, really. They tell him what they need in order to move on to the great beyond. Kip wants to move too. Straight out of Clover. He's about to give notice -- he's done helping the dead -- when he's offered a surprising deal: Find out the secret that is holding back old Billy Blye, and Kip will receive his weight in gold. That would be enough to take him far away from Clover, and Campbell and Sons Funeral Home.




Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked?


Book Description

Why would someone want to hang out with dead bodies? With curious anecdotes and unbelievable truth, funeral director Robert Webster reveals that answer and more, offering readers entertaining and quirky stories gleaned from a life lived around death. Webster tackles those embarrassing questions we all have about what really goes on bhind the scenes when you've left this world: Strange things people put in caskets The biggest rip-offs in the business The crazy things that happen to a body after death Lime, waz, and other ways to hide the truth The most important thing an undertaker does How to avoid the high-pressure funeral parlor What that's not a coffin the body is resting in