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A review by siobhanward
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Doughty's <i> From Here to Eternity <i/> was one of my favourite reads last year, and I was excited to read this one. While it wasn't quite as strong, I still really enjoyed Doughty's honest voice and the connections she makes to cultures outside of the US. I know how/why the US (and Canadian) burial systems exist and am familiar with rituals around death/dying that are common here. However, that's obviously only one very narrow view of death, and I appreciated Doughty's recognition of others and how US laws need to be amended in order to include more non-Western forms of burial and mourning.
Doughty approaches the topic of death with kindness and presents it in a way that feels so normal and natural that you forget you're reading about death. She speaks kindly in the book about those who are deceased, which I find isn't always the case in these kinds of books. Often these authors become so desensitized to deaths they forget that their audience is not desensitized in the same way (and that their readers may include loved ones of the deceased, who don't want to read crass or offhand comments about them).
Anyway, Doughty writes about death in a way that really makes a step towards making it not seem terrifying (including talking about things that worry people about death). Honestly, this book was written in a way that make me question if I should have gone into the funerary business as a career (answer: no, I'm far too emotional for that), but she writes about it in a way that makes it sound so important and critical (which is true) that you just want to be a part of it.
Doughty approaches the topic of death with kindness and presents it in a way that feels so normal and natural that you forget you're reading about death. She speaks kindly in the book about those who are deceased, which I find isn't always the case in these kinds of books. Often these authors become so desensitized to deaths they forget that their audience is not desensitized in the same way (and that their readers may include loved ones of the deceased, who don't want to read crass or offhand comments about them).
Anyway, Doughty writes about death in a way that really makes a step towards making it not seem terrifying (including talking about things that worry people about death). Honestly, this book was written in a way that make me question if I should have gone into the funerary business as a career (answer: no, I'm far too emotional for that), but she writes about it in a way that makes it sound so important and critical (which is true) that you just want to be a part of it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Gore