Nine Years of a Life in Death

In Sheri Booker's memoir Nine Years Under, Deacon Wylie has a proposition for this young member of his church: Why not work at his funeral home? Still reeling from her aunt Mary's death, Sheri agrees, and so begins a nine-year journey into the business of grief.  At first, Sheri thinks it's just going to be a summer job, but Mr. Wylie, as she comes to know him,  is willing to work with her schedule during school and on into college. Her job is to answer the door, do certain paperwork and, while this is not explicitly stated, bear witness. One of the first things Mr. Wylie teaches Sheri is not to cry. This is hard, because Sheri has a front-row seat at the slaughter of the men of her generation in addition to natural passings.

Not all is gloom and doom, however. The workers at the funeral home are close-knit. They share chicken dinners and a good deal of their lives. Near the end of the book, Sheri gets involved with Brandon Wylie, Mr. Wylie's spoiled son. Also, there is Tuverla, Sheri's friend from high school who becomes one of the precious few women to get her mortician's license.  The first time Sheri goes into the basement, where the actual embalming is to take place (and where her father has explicitly forbidden her to go), is pretty amusing. So is the time she has to engineer her way out of a sticky situation involving  Brandon and his on-again-off-again girlfriend. Altogether, this is a warm and eye-opening look at a world not many see.

This might be a good companion piece to Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death Revisited.