Working Stiff

Начало книги

Final Bath; and Tom Jokinen, author of Curtains.

These books got me started flying down the road.

The wild, strange divergences I took are entirely on

me. If you’re curious about the funeral industry,

those books are a great place to start.

Also, I want to acknowledge and thank the

unsung heroes: those true believers who work in the

funeral business. It’s important work, and these are

the last people we will ever meet. They don’t get

thanked, and they should.

Bryn’s first embalming instructor had told her, straight up, that two kinds of people entered the death business: freaks and true believers. Bryn Davis didn’t think she was either one of those. For her, it was a prime career opportunity—a genuine profession.

Oh, she’d picked up odd paychecks during college as an office temp, a dog walker, and one memorable afternoon at a chicken factory, but none of those had ever felt real to her. Joining the army after college had seemed like a good idea at the time (steady job, good wages), but four years in Iraq hadn’t made her want to be a career soldier; it had, though, given her a bedrock understanding of the fragility of human life. After that, dead bodies didn’t scare or disgust her.

Читать дальше →