The Undertaking (19 page)
Authors: Thomas Lynch
Page 1: Black and white photograph of Moyarta Cemetery near Carrigaholt, County Clare.
Page 15: Black and white photograph of Rosemary and Edward Lynch on the beach in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, 1963.
Page 27: Detail of street map, Galway City.
Page 43:
“St. Stephen.” Illustration from
Lives of the Saints for Every Day of the Year
, Rev. Hugo Hoever, S.O.Cist., Ph.D., editor, 1955. Catholic Book Publishing Co., New York.
Page 59: “Artichoke.” Black and white photograph by Patrick Young.
Page 75: Black and white photo of page from Kelco Supply Catalogue featuring a cultured walnut golf bag cremation urn with smaller “keepsake” golf bag on
its own fairway. Courtesy of Kelco Supply Company.
Page 101: Black and white photograph of Oak Grove Cemetery, Milford, Michigan. Photo courtesy of Patrick Young.
Page 123: Black and white photograph of pedestrian directional sign to “Hospitals” outside of Number 11 Dombey Street, London. Photo courtesy of Nico Sweeney.
Page 137: “Recumbent Woman.” Charcoal and tempera on paper, 1996.
Sean Lynch.
Page 149: Black and white photograph of left hand of suicide machine user from files of Oakland County Medical Examiner’s office.
Page 177: “Details from the Casket Trade.” Black and white photograph by M. E. Lynch.
Page 193: Black and white photograph of curbside stone from Lynch Vault in Moyarta Cemetery, Carrigaholt, County Clare.
Thomas Lynch
is an essayist, poet, and funeral director of Lynch & Sons funeral home in Milford, Michigan. His most recent book is
Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans.
Other recent books include
Still Life in Milford
and
Bodies in Motion and at Rest
. He published his first volume of poetry,
Skating with Heather Grace
, in 1987. Following this unique collection of poems, in 1994 he published
his next volume of poetry,
Grimalkin & Other Poems.
His work has appeared in
The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s
, and elsewhere. He divides his time between West Clare, Ireland, and Milford, Michigan, where he has been a funeral director for more than thirty-five years.
www.thomaslynch.com
The Emmy Award-winning PBS
Frontline
documentary
The Undertaking
is based on this book.
Copyright © 1997 by Thomas Lynch
Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint: Lines from “Old Life,” by Donald Hall. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. “Notes from the Other Side” copyright 1996 by Jane Kenyon. Reprinted from
Otherwise New & Selected Poems
with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. William Carlos
Williams:
Collected Poems: 1909-1939
, Volume 1 © copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First published as a Norton paperback 2009
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W.W. Norton & Company,
Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W.W. Norton Special Sales at [email protected] or 800-233-4830
Manufacturing by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
Book design by Judith Stagnitto Abbate
Production manager: Devon Zahn
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lynch, Thomas. 1948—
The undertaking : life studies from the dismal trade / Thomas Lynch p. cm.
ISBN 0-393-04112-3
1. Death. 2. Grief. 3. Lynch, Thomas, 1948-. I. Title.
BD444.L96 1997
814′.54—dc21 96-40900
CIP
ISBN 978-0-393-33487-6 pbk.
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
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