Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Here’s an update on Jessica Mitford’s still-relevant 1963 classic of muckraking, The American Way of Death, which shed all sorts of unwelcome light on this country’s funeral industry and its often horrific practices. While Mitford’s book had its (occasionally unintentional) hilarious moments, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen focuses on some of the bizarre modern rituals that have personalized death to the point of absurdity. God knows, in this day and age, when dead folks can buy customized “Precious Moments” caskets or have their ashes converted to keepsake “human diamonds,” Cullen has plenty of offbeat material. Even so, some of her yarns—a graveside dove release gone horribly wrong, or an account of a Colorado town’s Frozen Dead Guy Days festival—are almost too good to be true.