The American Way of Death
The American Way of Death is an exposé of abuses in the funeral home industry in the United States, written by Jessica Mitford and published in 1963. An updated revision, The American Way of Death Revisited, largely completed by Mitford just before her death in 1996, appeared in 1998.
Overview
Mitford's husband, civil rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft, persuaded her to write an investigative article about the American funeral industry. Although her article on the subject, "Saint Peter Don't You Call Me", published in Frontier magazine, was not widely disseminated, it caught considerable attention when Mitford appeared on a local television broadcast with two industry representatives. Convinced of public interest, she wrote The American Way of Death, which was published in 1963. In the book Mitford harshly criticized the industry for using unscrupulous business practices to take advantage of grieving families.Feeling that death had become much too sentimentalized, highly commercialized, and, above all, excessively expensive, Mitford published her research, which, she argues, documents the ways in which funeral directors took advantage of the shock and grief of loved ones' friends and relatives to convince them to pay far more than necessary for the funeral and other related services, such as availability of so-called "grief counselors", a title she claimed was unmerited. The book became a major bestseller and led to Congressional hearings on the funeral industry. It was one of the inspirations for the Tony Richardson film The Loved One, which was based on the Evelyn Waugh short satirical novel The Loved One, tellingly subtitled "An Anglo-American Tragedy".
In keeping with her wishes, Mitford herself had an inexpensive funeral, which cost a total of US$533.31. She was cremated without a ceremony, and the ashes scattered at sea; the cremation alone cost US$475. The funeral company was the Pacific Interment Service, which prides itself on "dignity, simplicity, affordability".
Reception
Judith Newman in the New York Times Book Review commented:Bess Lovejoy of Lapham's Quarterly wrote in an extended review of the 1998 updated revision: