The Mourner's Dance What We Do When People Die [Paperback]

When her daughter's fianc? died suddenly, Katherine Ashenburg was surprised to see how her daughter intuitively re-created the traditional rituals of mourning, even those of which she was ignorant. Intrigued, Ashenburg began to explore the rich and endlessly inventive choreographies different cultures and times have devised to mark a universal and deeply felt plight.

Contemporary North American culture favors a mourning that is private and virtually invisible. But, as Ashenburg reveals, the grieving customs of the past were so integrated into daily life that ultimately they gave rise to public parks and ready-to-wear clothing. Our keepsakes, prescribed bereavement garb, resting places, mourning etiquette; and ways of commiserating from wakes to Internet support groups remain clues to our most elemental beliefs, and our most effective means of restoring selves, and communities, unraveled by loss.

Such an elegant, deeply informative text.The Mourner's Danceweaves rich scholarship through the homespun of family history, folk tradition, and manifest humanity. In a way that Jessica Mitford never could, Ashenburg understands the verities of good grief and good funerals and why, to deal with Death, we must deal with our dead. Free of the warm-fuzzies, full of uncommon wisdom--here is a gift outright to anyone who reads and breathes. Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking

A fascinating, intelligent, moving, and witty account of one of our most basic and least understood needs: to come to terms with the end of a life that we loved. Alberto Manguel

Katherine Ashenburgis a journalist, lecturer, and regular contributor toThe New York Times. She lives in Toronto.