Book Review: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

One of the corners of the internet that I frequent is that of The Order of the Good Death. The main gal, Caitlin Doughty, is most well-known for her web series, Ask A Mortician. Both the mostly serious website and the more lighthearted videos (yes, death factoid videos can be lighthearted) deal with confronting death, dealing with one's fears of it, and learning to accept mortality - and by doing so, learn to live a better life. Caitlin argues/advocates/proclaims that the "good death" is not a heavily staged, poor imitation of a person's life, but that good death comes from realistic expectations about the process of dying, knowing the various funeral options available to you, and accepting that the death of your acquaintances and loved ones (and eventually yourself) will be grievous, but not unendurable. That death is not something to be avoided - indeed, cannot be avoided, and so instead of fighting it, let it be, and say with Vonnegut: "So it goes."

And now, she's written a memoir. Which I am, in the parlance of the day, all about.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory is like How We Die, in that both hold that learning about what scares you (and me and him and all of us) will make it more bearable. An insider on the medical world, Nuland writes in How We Die about the flaws of that system, telling the reader about all the various ways a person can die and why the doctor is not a savior; an insider on the funeral industry, Doughty tells us about all the various ways a person - now corpse - is dealt with in modern America, and why this way of embalming, disconnect with the dead, and sometimes even abandonment is not what's needed. That instead, the bodies of our loved ones should be cared for with meaningful rituals, and that death dialog will only improve our relationship with mortality.

We learn in her memoir that Doughty didn't come to her equanimity towards death lightly. She writes of her fear of losing control over her body - that in the end, she could be seen out with as much "dignity" and gravitas as a sack of rotten potatoes (my analogy, not hers). "It seemed unfair that I could spend a lifetime making sure I was dressed well and saying all the right things only to end up dead and powerless at the end."

As a child, she was afraid of death and dying, like most of us were/are. And like most of us, she wasn't helped through her fears by any adults - because they, too, were afraid. But, as she says in this very touching video, children too can learn death acceptance. And in the long run, that will be healthier for us all.

Trained as a medievalist before getting her mortuary science degree, Doughty's prose is concise and well-written, and her sources are wide and varied. I especially like her moment of Campbell: "Mythologist Joseph Campbell wisely tells us to scorn the happy ending, 'for the world as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that he have loved."

While still full of the wise-crackings and straight-talk that make her web series so engaging, as you can tell from the above quote, Smoke is not always an easy read. Doughty writes of many mind squicks (as in Campbell's existential-dread-inducing quote above), and many physical squicks (embalming is a yucky, yucky business). Nothing is horrifically gruesome, but it's not euphemisms and ponies and rainbows - which very straightforwardness lends to its credibility and helpful message.

In the end, Smoke has this to say: "Death isn't happening to you. Death is happening to us all." By learning to accept that, we can, like Doughty, face death and dying with less fear and more grace.

ETA: I remembered I have a lot of graveyard pictures.
It seemed appropriate that I should add one to this post.

xo,
Devo