We sometimes read narrative nonfiction in order to try to make sense of challenges in our own lives. Other times, we read to get a sense for what goes on in places and times that we hope to never have to experience. Often, the same book can serve both purposes for the reader.
As do so many writers, Thomas Lynch has a day job, but unlike most of his peers who teach in universities, Lynch works in the family business. Lynch is funeral director of Lynch & Sons funeral home in Milford, Michigan. His work brings him into daily contact with issues of mortality, and he explores this realm with elegance and compassion.
The Undertaking consists of twelve essays based on Lynch’s encounters with death in its myriad forms. Lynch is familiar with death by accident and by suicide, with unexpected death and with longed-for death, with the death of a parent (including his father) and the death of children. His compassion for the dead and for the living is present on every page here. Through the lives and the deaths of the members of Lynch’s community we begin to see the patterns of life there. Lynch brings us through death to a greater appreciation for life.
Most of us will never go behind the scenes of a funeral home to see what the work involves (at least not in our living moments). So on the one hand you can read The Undertaking as a vicarious look at work that we never want to do. But you can also read the book as an extended meditation on life and death in a small community, and by extension a meditation on how we can best live so that our lives will be worth remembering.
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