undertakers and undertaking

"Six Feet Under" meets The Wire in a dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming-of-age in a black funeral home in Baltimore. Sheri Booker was only fifteen years old when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea that her summer job would become nine years of immersion in a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, she found comfort in the funeral home, and soon has the run of the place, from its sacred chapels to the terrifying embalming room. With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald's with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry. This vibrant tour of a macabre world reveals an urban funeral culture where photo-screened memorial T-shirts often replace suits and ties and the dead are sent off with a joint or a fifth of cognac. Nine Years Under offers readers an unbelievable glimpse into an industry in the backdrop of all our lives"--.

Sarah Donovan arrives in Denver in 1876, takes a job as a telegrapher, and launches herself into the middle of the fight for women's suffrage, all of which places her at odds with conservative undertaker Daniel Petterman, who fears Sarah's ideas will corrupt his young daughters, but as Sarah and Daniel find themselves more and more in each other's company, their feelings grow and they must ultimately decide whether their love is worth the trouble and sacrifice it will take to survive.

Presents an update of the 1963 expose of the funeral industry in America, written in response to the unregulated cost of funerals, with new materials on the prepayment trend, monopoly ownership of mortuaries and cemeteries, and other topics.

Still able to hear the voices of dead people who want him to help them with unresolved problems, Kip Campbell struggles with conflicting feelings about his unique ability and the burdens it places on him in his daily life.

At nine years of age, Monica Holloway developed a fascination with the local funeral home. Her father's bouts of violence, her mother's selfishness, and her siblings' betrayals drove her to find safety elsewhere. She becomes fast friends with Julie, whose father is the town mortician. As they grow older, Monica and Julie drive the hearse to the airport to pick up bodies. Although she has to continue to cope with her dysfunctional family, Monica never gives up and her book reflects this.

Explores career opportunities for those interested in becoming a funeral director, embalmer, coroner, medical examiner, or pathologist.

The last thing twelve-year-old Christopher "Kip" Campbell wants is to take over the funeral business that has been in his family for generations, but he is the only Campbell heir and seems to have a calling to help the dead and their survivors in a most unusual way.

With his father, a fugitive, falsely accused of multiple murders and the real serial killer stalking the wretched streets of Urbs Umida, Pin Carpue, a young undertaker's assistant, investigates and finds that all of the victims may have attended the performance of a stage magician who claims to be able to raise corpses and make the dead speak.

The last thing twelve-year-old Christopher "Kip" Campbell wants is to take over the funeral business that has been in his family for generations, but he is the only Campbell heir and seems to have a calling to help the dead and their survivors in a most unusual way.

The summer after sixth grade, Brad Stanislawski travels to Pennsylvania by himself to visit the grandfather he has never met before, and overcomes some of the preconceived ideas he has gotten from his mother.