The American Way of Death Revisited

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At a happy lunch with me early in 1995, Jessica Mitford—“Decca” to everyone who knew her—agreed to prepare an updated version of her classic work The American Way of Death. (As she reports in her introduction to this volume, we had worked on that book together in the early sixties, and had remained close friends both through a number of other publishing ventures and after our professional relationship came to an end.) A lot had changed in the funeral trade since the first edition was published, in 1963, and not many of the changes were for the better. The plan was to retain from the original everything that still applied and to add new chapters as needed, such as the report on the Tiburon conference (“Not Selling”), an investigation of the new international funeral giants (“A Global Village of the Dead”), and an account of the failures of the Federal Trade Commission in the wake of new legislation that was written largely in reaction to the first edition of the book. Certain material—for instance, most of the chapter on floral tributes (“The Menace of P.O.”)—was excised as no longer relevant, although I suspect that the floral deluge that followed Princess Diana’s death would have evoked some new commentary on this subject. And, of course, a great deal of updating—particularly of prices—was needed.

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