Stuck in a Book

I remember being fascinated by The American Way of Death when I had my Mitfordmania in 2008. Eagerly reading everything I could about this extraordinary family, it seemed so strange and unexpected that one of their many achievements was revolutionising the American funeral industry. How on earth did that factor into the lives of English socialites in the mid-20th-century?

I kept an eye out for a copy of the book, finally buying one in 2019. And it might have languished on my shelves forever, only an episode of Lost Ladies of Lit spurred me to take it off the shelf – and, gosh, what an unusual and excellent book it is. If you think that you aren’t interested in the mid-century funeral industry in the US, then let me tell you – you will be.

Here’s how it opens:

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative’s funeral, has ruefully concluded that the victory has been won hands down by a funeral establishment – in disastrously unequal battle.

Encapsulated in that paragraph is everything you can expect from Mitford throughout this book. The American Way of Death is characterised by a wry humour which makes it a constant delight to read, even when you are infuriated on behalf of those ‘survivors’. She is gently sarcastic in the direction of the bombast of the poe-faced men and women (mostly men) benefitting from other people’s grief, and she is driven by a sort of compassionate, righteous anger.

I have never organised a funeral, let alone one in mid-century America, and I have very little idea of what the process is – except for the bit involving the vicar. One of the features of growing up in a vicarage is that I often answered the phone to funeral directors, and they were always very pleasant and, indeed, jolly. (Incidentally, one of the strangest phone calls I ever took was a lady hoping to arrange funerals for both her parents – neither of whom were actually dead.)

Having said all that, it becomes clear from Mitford’s extraordinary research that undertakers in mid-century America (who were only recently adopting the term ‘funeral director’ that now seems so commonplace) were on the make. They confronted grieving families with the most underhand tactics of the secondhand car salesman, using the language of faith or duty to extort the most money possible from relatives at a moment when they were least able to defend themselves. Mitford spends much of the book exploring and uncovering what these tactics look like, from the layout of coffin (‘casket’) showrooms to the bending of the truth regarding laws around cremation or embalming. Indeed, you’ll get more details of embalming than you could ever have hoped for, including whether it does or does not impede the decomposition process.

Mitford is clearly winsome enough to have got plenty of funeral men to confide in her – sometimes in the guise of a grieving relative, sometimes more openly as a journalist. Alongside, she has done indefatigable research, gathering brochures, conferences notes and more in giving a full picture of the situation. The defences of the profiteers are pretty flimsy, and she exposes them as such:

The guiding rule in funeral pricing appears to be “from each according to his means,” regardless of the actual wishes of the family. A funeral director in San Francisco says, “If a person drives a Cadillac, why should he have a Pontiac funeral?” The Cadillac symbol figures prominently in the mortician’s thinking. This kind of reasoning is peculiar to the funeral industry. A person can drive up to an expensive restaurant in a Cadillac and can order, rather than the $40 dinner, a $2 cup of tea and he will be served. It is unlikely that the proprietor will point to his elegant furnishings and staff and demand that the Cadillac owner order something more commensurate with his ability to pay so as to help defray the overhead of the restaurant.

Mitford has such a way with words, and it is her style that keeps you reading. Being honest, the book can be rather repetitive. We know the premise and it doesn’t take long to get to grips with the broad trend of what’s going on. Her thoroughness means we see the industry from many different angles and perspectives, but The American Way of Death is endlessly interesting because of the compelling way she writes. What could have been a dry thesis often feels like a novel, peopled with bizarre characters – some good, many bad, and plenty of eccentrics.

One of my favourite sections was on florists – and specifically the increasing popularity of ‘no flowers please’ in funeral notices and obituaries. At the time of Mitford’s writing, the florists were up in arms. I have to quote in full this extraordinary letter, written to a local newspaper after a ‘no flowers’ request was printed:

We wish to express an objection to the reporting of an article concerning the death of —— as it appeared in a recent issue of your paper.

At the close of this article you reported, “The family has asked that flowers be omitted and any tribute be given to the Red Cross or to the Mary Endowment Fund.”

We feel it is not clean business or necessary in reporting a situation, for one business to express the opinion that another business can afford to be penalised in the light of charity. We do not believe in doing a good job of reporting it was necessary to include this paragraph, and the omission of this request would not have changed your ability of reporting his passing.

As a member of the Allied Florists of Saint Louis publicity committee, I know the Post-Dispatch has a generous share of our advertising funds, and the encouragement by your paper to ‘kindly omit flowers’ can hasten the day when the funds available for advertising could be so restricted that the newspapers of this community can lose that source of revenue they have been receiving.

It is not of my mind to question the wishes of any personal family. I naturally am puzzled as to why we florists have been selected as a business which can afford to do without a portion of their business at the expense of charity. I have yet to see a newspaper article on a paid obituary notice suggesting the omission of candy, liquor, cosmetics or tobacco, with funds to be forwarded to charity. It is only in the light of what I consider good business that I draw this to your attention.

This sort of thing scarcely needs any commentary! Mitford knows when to give people enough rope to hang themselves.

The American Way of Death is, of course, a snapshot of a particular time. Some of the things feel like they never caught on (does anybody say ‘cremains’ for cremated remains? Certainly I’ve never come across it) while some things feel irreparably embedded in Western culture. Apparently the publication of the book did lead to significant changes in the funeral industry, and a certain amount of outcry, but I suspect the creeping dominance of late-stage capitalism means some of the worst excesses have found their way back.

While the book was written as an exposé, it is so much more readable than you’d expect a 1960s exposé to be. We are no longer reading primarily as a way of understanding a public scandal – but it is fascinating as a cultural artefact and delightful as the work of a very funny, very persistent author. Come for the funeral facts; stay for the dry wit. What an unexpected classic.