Description
Book Synopsis
This book presents the unique, moving perspective of a gravedigger’s daughter and her lifelong relationship with death. It is also a masterful meditation on the living elements of our cemeteries: our neighbors, friends, and families and how these things come together in the eyes of a young girl whose childhood is suffused with death and the wonder of the living.
Trade Review
"We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down gently untucks dying, death, and mourning from the dark recesses of the drawer we Midwesterners, descendants of the stoic and neat, have kept it. Choice passages of Hanel’s story so affected me that my throat went sore swallowing grief. All the while, I had the sense of watching a determined child fall down, scrape her knee, and stand up, lip quivering, eyes glistening but resolute." —Nicole Helget, author of The Turtle Catcher
"Mesmerizing!" —Alison Bechdel, author of
Fun HomeTable of Contents
Contents
1. We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down
2. Digger O’Dell
3. In the Midst of Life We Are in Death
4. Stormy Weather
5. Precious in the Sight of the Lord Is the Death of His Saints
6. Break the Plow
7. As You Think, You Travel
8. When Beauty Dies
9. A Gossamer World
10. Helter Skelter
11. Opening Night
12. The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away
13. What Was Left Behind
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
