{"product_id":"american-afterlife-encounters-in-the-customs-of-mourning-paperback","title":"American Afterlife: Encounters in the Customs of Mourning - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eKate Sweeney\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSomeone dies. What happens next? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOne family inters their matriarch's ashes on the floor of the ocean. Another holds a memorial weenie roast each year at a green-burial cemetery. An 1898 ad for embalming fluid promises, \"You can make mummies with it \" while a leading contemporary burial vault is touted as impervious to the elements. A grieving mother, 150 years ago, might spend her days tending a garden at her daughter's grave. Today, she might tend the roadside memorial she erected at the spot her daughter was killed. One mother wears a locket containing her daughter's hair; the other, a necklace containing her ashes. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat happens after someone dies depends on our personal stories and on where those stories fall in a larger tale--that of death in America. It's a powerful tale that we usually keep hidden from our everyday lives until we have to face it. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmerican Afterlife\u003c\/i\u003e by Kate Sweeney reveals this world through a collective portrait of Americans past and present who find themselves personally involved with death: a klatch of obit writers in the desert, a funeral voyage on the Atlantic, a fourth-generation funeral director--even a midwestern museum that takes us back in time to meet our death-obsessed Victorian progenitors. Each story illuminates details in another until something larger is revealed: a landscape that feels at once strange and familiar, one that's by turns odd, tragic, poignant, and sometimes even funny.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eKATE SWEENEY is an Atlanta-based writer and public radio storyteller and producer. Sweeney's radio stories air regularly on Atlanta's NPR station, and she has won a number of Edward R. Murrow awards and Associated Press awards for her work. Her writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eOxford American, Utne Reader\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAtlanta Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew South\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 232\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.6 x 8.33 x 5.34 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 01, 2016\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51757875265824,"sku":"9780820350585","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/19dc0ba312a73763bff06971fd345f30_f8716527-c0be-40c8-8f66-2a4b3f68d88d.webp?v=1780113766","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/american-afterlife-encounters-in-the-customs-of-mourning-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}