Hw - 50 First Third of Care-for-the-Dead Book Post

Mark Harris, Grave Matters:A Journey Through The Modern Funeral Industry to A Natural Way of Burial, 2007, Scribner, New York, NY.

Precis: Twelve hours after they'd left Brakertown Memorial Hospital, Jim and Myra Johnson made arrangements for the burial of their daughter Jenny at the Fielding Funeral Home. Tom Feilding, the funeral director greets both Jim and Myra Johnson inviting the couple to a hush receiving room making it more or less comfortable for the family - Fielding doesn't try to console families. The Johnson's tell Feilding that they would like a funeral that is traditional to their catholic backgrounds. A viewing service at St. Matthews. Burial in Holy savior. Feilding tells the Johnson this is possible and gives them the complete detail of a variety of costs ranging from the place they want the burial (Church or funeral home) to the time and length the burial will be. The total costs for options of viewing the Johnson's chose came up to be $12,376. After the burial of their daughter, the Johnson's and the Holy savior oversee the the sealing of the vault which rests on a stand with rails running into the grave.

Quotes:
"The kind of send-off the Johnson's brought into for their daughter likely plays out more than a million times every year in this country...some twenty-seven hundred licensed embalmers like Tom Feilding will wheel a newly deceased family member into their prep rooms and there ply their trade..."(41)

"The funeral industry has taken to calling this final undertaking the traditional American funeral service...Today's typical funeral is but a modern construct, and one that bears little resemblance to the way earlier generations cared for, paid tribute to, and buried their dead."(41)

"The industrial engine beginning to drive the economy made it possible, mass-producing the trappings of the tasteful funeral that could increasingly be had in the growing marketplace of goods and on a workingman's wages. When it came to elaborating on the simple funeral, capitalism and gentility proved a winning combination." (43)

Analysis:
Mark Harris brings fourth a detailed and a precise sequence of what "deciding" a funeral and burial is for the first third of the book. The personal story of the Johnson's and their relationship with funeral director Tom Feilding advocates that Death is a business and is rather costly and is a million dollar industry. Other than briefly consoling the families who have lost a family member, the families are offered alternatives to seek therapy which is providing by the company which you have to pay more and on top of all of that, the fee's and cost of burial for a family member. From the selection of where burials can be to the type of casket a loved one will go six feet deep into the ground, its a big business and it commonly seen every day.