Description
Book SynopsisA National Book Award Finalist
"One of the most life-affirming books I have read in a long time…brims with humanity, irreverence, and invigorating candor." —Tom Vanderbilt
Trade Review"A startling and eloquent meditation on death and bereavement…If you think this book isn't about you, or for you, think again." -- Spin
"Forceful, authentic, and full of a kind of ethical and aesthetic clarity." -- Richard Bernstein - New York Times
"A memoir that is stand-out superb." -- Esquire
"[Lynch] is able to take us inside the palpable business of blood, tears, and the final verse of life in a manner that is almost shocking in the relief it delivers…[A] fine, sensible, and wise book." -- Boston Globe
"Lynch’s vivid prose has the electricity of writing that tells us what is going on in the secret places of the community—and the secret places of the heart." -- USA Today
"[Lynch] brings the lessons of death to life, and turns life and death into art." -- Time Out New York
"Lynch’s essays are consistently humane and observant of the tragic, humorous, and occasionally startling vagaries of human life…Highly recommended reading for fans of poetry, Ireland, funeral and cultural customs, or anything else. More than a study of ‘the dismal trade,’ it is a long view of what it means to be human." -- Detroit Free Press
"[An] unusual and affecting book. Lynch writes beautifully and affectingly…Each of the book’s chapters…enchants and instructs while enlightening us in the ways of living, dying, and most important, in Lynch’s anything-but-dismal view, loving." -- Elle
"[Lynch] devotes most of his finely composed pages to gently humorous and unabashedly affectionate portraits of the people he loves…[A] collection of powerful and cadenced essays." -- Chicago Tribune
