"The Undertaking : Life Studies from the Dismal Trade" was written by Thomas Lynch and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1997. The following is excerpted from the book's blurb |> "Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople." So opens the singular testimony of the poet Thomas Lynch. Like all poets, inspired by death, Lynch is, unlike others, also hired to bury the dead or to cremate them and to tend to their families in a small Michigan town where he serves as the funeral director. In the conduct of these duties he has kept his eyes open, his ears tuned to the indispensable vernaculars of love and grief. Here is the voice of both witness and functionary. Lynch stands between"the living and the living who have died" with outrage and amazement, awe and calm, straining for the brief glimpse we all get of what mortality means to a vital species. This is a book of elegance and grace, full of fierce compassion and rich in humor and humanity - lessons taught to the living by the dead.<|


TITLE : The Undertaking : Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
AUTHOR : Thomas Lynch
IMPRINT : W. W. Norton and Company
PLACE : New York
DATE : (1997)
EDITION : Second Printing
STATUS : Hardcover OP (The book was a National Book Award finalist.)
DETAILS : Trade hardcover ; contains several black-and-white illustrations, some of them being photographs; has the author's Preface; contains a few notes on the pictures; [xxii] + 202 pages; 4 7/8" x 7 5/8"; black paper covered boards and spine with white lettering on spine; author's initials stamped in white on front board; photo-pictorial dust-jacket; photograph of author on rear flap.

CONDITION ... This is a previously owned book that remains clean, tight and attractive with the following particulars noted :

EXTERIOR : Clean and crisp with negligible signs of handling.
BINDING : Tight.
INTERIOR : Clean and presentable with no markings.
DUST-JACKET : Visible surface rub, else near-negligible wear. Original price still on front flap.