Working with Decca ( as Jessica Mitford was called by nearly everyone) on her revision of The American Way of Death was like taking a trip through the Looking Glass with the Cheshire Cat as my tour guide. It was a grand and somewhat bizzare adventure. Her delight in the antics of the dismal trade was contagious and her only regret when she began the update of her book was the lack of good spokespeople, or foist for her joust. She was genuinely saddened to learn of the death of Krieger, the mastermind of the casket showroom layout. Howard Raether, one time Director of the National Funeral Director's Associate, had been so deflated in stature by the time of her rewrite that he seemed buried, if not quite dead.

The present day spokespeople for the industry were so mealy-mouthed, so cautious and passionless that Decca felt, at first, that the decades since The American Way of Death was published had taken the wind out of their sales, er...sails. But the beautiful brochures and glossy advertising of the death industry made her realize that they had simply learned to become more subtle. Their jargon had climbed from the emotionally charged drivel of sanctimonious God's headwaiters to the heights of sleek Madison Avenue ad-men.

Without a doubt, the emergence of the multi-national conglomerates in the industry changed the scene from local mortuaries and cemeteries battling over bodies to a Wall Street commerce ofcorpses. Reading the detailed analysis of the stock brokers, who were very "bullish" on death, filled her with inspiration. Decca was assured that her old nemesis, the men in black, would never fail to entertain her and her readers. This, more than anything else, influenced Decca to start out once more on her journey to what she referred to as "cloud cuckoo land", where Death's real adventure is getting past His vendors.

...by Karen Leonard of the The Mitford Institute