Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die - Softcover

Ashenburg, Katherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865477051 ISBN 13: 9780865477056

Publisher: FSG, 2004

Synopsis

When her daughter's fiancé died suddenly, Katherine Ashenburg was surprised to see how her daughter intuitively re-created the traditional rituals of mourning, even those of which she was ignorant. Intrigued, Ashenburg began to explore the rich and endlessly inventive choreographies different cultures and times have devised to mark a universal and deeply felt plight.

Contemporary North American culture favors a mourning that is private and virtually invisible. But, as Ashenburg reveals, the grieving customs of the past were so integrated into daily life that ultimately they gave rise to public parks and ready-to-wear clothing. Our keepsakes, prescribed bereavement garb, resting places, mourning etiquette; and ways of commiserating from wakes to Internet support groups remain clues to our most elemental beliefs, and our most effective means of restoring selves, and communities, unraveled by loss.

About this title

Review:

"Such an elegant, deeply informative text. The Mourner's Dance weaves rich scholarship through the homespun of family history, folk tradition, and manifest humanity. In a way that Jessica Mitford never could, Ashenburg understands the verities of good grief and good funerals and why, to deal with Death, we must deal with our dead. Free of the warm-fuzzies, full of uncommon wisdom--here is a gift outright to anyone who reads and breathes." --Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking

"A fascinating, intelligent, moving, and witty account of one of our most basic and least understood needs: to come to terms with the end of a life that we loved." --Alberto Manguel

About the Author:

Katherine Ashenburg is a journalist, lecturer, and regular contributor to The New York Times. She lives in Toronto.

About this edition

• Publisher: FSG
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0865477051
• ISBN 13: 9780865477056
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 348