The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

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The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 1,239 ratings · 218 reviews

Thomas Lynch serves his readership as a poet and memoirist, and his townspeople as a funeral director. In this wholly unique collection of essays, the two vocations meet as Lynch shows himself to be a competent functionary of mourning -- dispensing comfort and homespun wisdom to the grief-stricken -- as well as a poet poignantly tuning language to the right tones of privat...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published September 1st 1998 by Penguin Books (first published July 1st 1997)

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Feb 21, 2008 Mere rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Mere by: PBS/Frontline

Wow...I mean wow. A poet & an undertaker - a sensible combination, Thomas Lynch writes with such grace and clarity I often found myself rereading passages or laughing out loud. I didn't always agree with the Lynch's religious or political views, nor the way in which he expressed them, but accept my lens is a little thicker. It never ceases to amaze me how our culture deals - or doesn't - with death...a subject that has, does or will affect and effect us all. wow.

OOO - also, if you are/were...more

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Oct 11, 2007 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Although The Undertaking includes a plethora of examples of the experiences Lynch has seen throughout his years as an undertaker, the book is really more a book about life than it is about death. Woven in essays throughout the book, Lynch engages in reflective consideration about death and expresses his wisdom and humor with a poetic meticulousness.

I found the book to be beautiful and mesmerizing, drawing me slowly into the issue of how death affects life. This book is probably one of the best...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Becky Everhart rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: how-to, humor, medical, memoir, non-fiction, religion

Perhaps my fascination with this book says a little something of my darker side, but when it's a book this good, I don't mind letting the skeleton out of the closet for a nice jaunt. The essays are eloquent as only the words of a poet can be (yes, he is a poet as well as an undertaker!) with a sprinkling of profanity and such to keep Lynch human. The points of his poignant essays hit home with their well-made arguments and other sides of the story. I can only wish when my time comes I have someo...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Loren rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: morbid-books

Thomas Lynch is an undertaker and a poet. Unsurprisingly, one occupation interests me more than the other. When he tells the tales of things he has seen -- the late night “removals” he's performed, the children he buried while his own kids grew up, the bedrooms he painted so the surviving spouse wouldn’t sleep beneath the shotgun’s evidence -- those stories are riveting.

Some of what he has to say comes perilously close to testifying: he has seen our futures and it’s later than we think. One essa...more Thomas Lynch is an undertaker and a poet. Unsurprisingly, one occupation interests me more than the other. When he tells the tales of things he has seen -- the late night “removals” he's performed, the children he buried while his own kids grew up, the bedrooms he painted so the surviving spouse wouldn’t sleep beneath the shotgun’s evidence -- those stories are riveting.

Some of what he has to say comes perilously close to testifying: he has seen our futures and it’s later than we think. One essay considers the past in which babies were born in a room near the kitchen, young people were married in the parlor, and the dead were laid out and waked in their own homes. In those days, people were familiar with the physical realities of life. Once "shitting" moved from the out-house to the porcelain throne, and the dead were shifted from the place where they lived to the funeral “home,” society began to fall apart. Every now and then, Lynch likes to shit in his garden, just to reconnect with nature. I’m not making this up. He doesn’t go so far as to recommend everyone try it, but the implication is that the undertaker knows what’s good for us.

Unfortunately, Lynch crosses the line between testifying and preaching when he writes about suicide. He likens assisted suicide to abortion. Just because he has the “ability to piss on his neighbor’s day lilies,” that doesn’t mean he has the right. (Do you see a theme developing here?) He stops short of saying that suicide is a sin, but points out that as a Catholic boy, he was raised to believe in offering up one’s pain for the good of the suffering souls. One wonders how differently he will feel about the matter when his agony lingers for months on end as he’s eaten by the cancer that killed his mother. Of course, he expects to die quickly and relatively painlessly from the bad heart his father left him…

Still, Lynch is more than half a businessman. He relates the story of his brother, who owned a business created to clean up after suicides. The brother sold the business after Kevorkian began his crusade (Lynch works in Michigan, after all). It wasn’t that people were no longer going to kill themselves, they just weren’t going to make such a mess. The brother saw no profit in continuing to serve the grieving public. Lynch, however, foresees that if he can’t prevent assisted suicides, he may as well open “obitoria” where people can come to die in a building beside the funeral home. One-shop stopping.

This was a frustrating book, but full of food for thought. Most of the essays were structured like poems: a stanza on one topic, a stanza on another, quick interplay between the two as if in a chorus, several more stanzas, a final chorus. I found the lack of linear thought dizzying. Yet the poet has a gift for phrasing. I find myself wanting to adopt some of Lynch’s bon mots, like “Are you out of your kevorking mind?”
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Aug 08, 2010 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars

While searching for another book I came across this title and immediately remembered it with reverence. So, I checked it out at the library and re-visited the pages. What a book! Every word is a jewel; every page is a treasure. Well, maybe not the part about golf, which I hate, but oh well. Thomas Lynch is an undertaker. He is also a poet so he chooses his words with care. I love/loved his take on death and his careful detailing of the rituals of death combined with his deeply religious, or for...more

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Dec 19, 2009 Visha Burkart rated it 4 of 5 stars

Somehow, lately, I keep coming across undertakers and funeral homes (in literature, thank goodness).

Lynch's collection of essays is beautifully written; the pace of his writing flows with the rhythm of a grandfather clock's pendulum - even, slow, comforting, reliable. I loved his tone even more than his poetically magnificent sentences - he's dry, not without gallow's humor, and lacking the kind of judgement and religious fervor I expected. He braids his subjects with ease, and manages to appea...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Fred rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned

I had hoped for much more from this book. It received good notices and won the American Book Award. But there were a few aspects of the book and the writing that put me off, and I quit at the halfway point.

First, I would very much like publishers to stop putting out essay collections that appear to be continuous narratives. Such a form can be done well (Atul Gawande's BETTER achieved a continuity with a consistent theme and editing that reinforced it, despite the fact that it was clearly a colle...more I had hoped for much more from this book. It received good notices and won the American Book Award. But there were a few aspects of the book and the writing that put me off, and I quit at the halfway point.

First, I would very much like publishers to stop putting out essay collections that appear to be continuous narratives. Such a form can be done well (Atul Gawande's BETTER achieved a continuity with a consistent theme and editing that reinforced it, despite the fact that it was clearly a collection), but more often it seems a cheat to readers who are hoping to pick up a book on a single subject. Instead they get a loose collection of short pieces that may or may not relate to the subject in which they were interested. That is the case here.

Second, I'm afraid I found Thomas Lynch's style overly adorned and florid. This is probably in part because, in addition to being an undertaker, he is also a poet. His poetic tendency leads him, ironically, to say more when it would do to say less. I enjoyed some parts of some of his stories, but I knew I would have enjoyed them more if many of his descriptions, asides, and opinions had been trimmed away. This is a matter of taste, I suppose, but I was less able to enjoy the stories, because I was rarely allowed to forget that it was Thomas Lynch telling them. He seemed very concerned that his voice be prominent, and I guess I just don't like that voice.

(I don't mean to suggest that contemporary nonfiction be devoid of personality and idiosyncrasy, but writers who are enamored of their own voices can often in the reader's way, of being too intrusive a mediator of the message.)

Third, there are too many single-sentence paragraphs.

Fourth: puns.

And, finally, fifth, I honestly never got what I came for. The conceit of the book, at least in part, is that Lynch will conduct us through a world that he is well-prepared to share with us: that of the funeral business. But far too often he drifts far afield, and the straightforward details I would expect from such a book are imparted only partially, and often in passing. Clearly he has a viewpoint that he would like to share, and that viewpoint sometimes stands in opposition to earlier books published about his trade. But he does not marshal the facts as often as necessary, and he sometimes falls back on generalizations and wry opinion when the truly convincing evidence one needs is old-fashioned example.(less)

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May 02, 2008 Padraic rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Those of us on the downward slope

Recommended to Padraic by: Dante

Shelves: irish-diaspora

My senior year high school American lit teacher was an undertaker by trade. So this book makes great sense to me. Coming from a culture that rarely distinguishes between the dead and the living, I find Lynch's essays bleak, hilarious, and sublimely spiritual. Which is exactly why some of you will hate him.

As Olympia Dukakis says to Vince Gardenia in Moonstruck, "I just want you to know no matter what you do, Cosmo, you're gonna die, just like everybody else."

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Apr 09, 2012 Darlene rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Undertaking:Life Studies from the Dismal Trade is a collection of essays by Thomas Lynch. I was aware before starting the book that Mr. Lynch, along with his brother and father before him, is a funeral director but I also discovered that Mr. Lynch is also a published poet. This turned out to be an interesting combination! These beautiful essays were WERE written in that unmistakeable lyrical voice of a poet.

There is no real theme in this collection of essays... they are simply Mr. Lynch's m...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Sarah Payok rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade is a memoir from Milford, MI mortician/poet Thomas Lynch. Lynch positions key moments in all of our lives (such as birth, death, illness, and suicide) against his own life experiences, and mixes in snippets of death and burial facts, along with stories from his own experiences as an undertaker. His professional stories were my favorite moments of the book; I loved the real life stories, such as the woman who had the ashes of her cremated husban...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Jeffrey Moll rated it 4 of 5 stars

The novel is an almost technical way to look at death in light of elements of dark comedy. There are moments where Thomas Lynch depicts the process of preparing the body for a funeral as a mix of duty and modern mentality. He states that the world changed when the toilet was brought into the household, waste simply disappeared at the pull of the handle. This mood is carried throughout when he compares the decomposition of the body with the need to quickly make a proper funeral and final memories...more

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Jul 01, 2009 Gail rated it 3 of 5 stars

Thomas Lynch is one of those writers I've heard about for ten years but had never read. Famous to all ( all who read) as the poet/funeraldirector.

This is a collection of his essays, some previously published in Harpers and the London Review of Books. I don't know if one can "tell" someone is a poet by his or her prose, but Lynch is certainly an admirable stylist. He squeezes out all the extras and leaves the reader with the essense, pungent, earthy, rich.

I Lke to read about death as much as the...more

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Dec 18, 2012 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

I live not far from Mr. Lynch's home town of Milford. This was a very hot book here in Michigan a dozen years ago, and I finally got around to reading it. Perhaps I"d heard too much build up, because I did not find it that wonderful.

Some of the tales of his experieince as funeral director were interesting - to a point - but even that seemed to feel repetitive as the book carried on - how man times did he use the phrase "The dead don't care, they're dead." or similar words? Too many for me.

It see...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-loan, non-fiction

I really enjoyed this 'dismal' book. The author, poet/undertaker weaves lyrically but sometimes very pragmatically in, out and around the big subjects of Life and Death and lives and deaths.

I sometimes felt he was a little too defensive about his trade - he doesn't (I don't recall) quite describe Jessica Mitford (of "The American Way of Death") as 'that nasty woman' but you do get the impression that's what he thinks. I don't feel he adequately addresses why she might have been wrong. He does al...more

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May 29, 2012 Barbara Coe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Leave it to a poet to turn the topic of death upside down. This is not a book about dying. This is a book about living. Underneath all the details of his business, Lynch returns to the heart of the collection: The dead don't care. He tells us over and over again in lean yet layered prose.
The big take away for me was that he allows us inside these stories to view the impact we have on each other.
When I finished, I was reminded of David Foster Wallace's This is Water speech in which he says that...more

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Feb 16, 2008 daysgoby rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Schmutzie

Beautiful and lyrical, this book sucked me in from the second page and wouldn't let go. More about the impact of being the undertaker in a small town than the actual business, it was written by a poet/undertaker in a small town in Michigan who uses words like darts to exactly indicate his meaning.

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May 08, 2012 Kristine rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-groups, non-fiction

The best thing: I was able to read it in one night.
The next best thing: I'd never read a memoir by an undertaker before.
The worst thing: it was a memoir of an undertaker.
The next worst thing: the book was organized in what felt like essays, but the essays seemed disconnected from each other-- sometimes in tone and topic both.
A slightly positive thing: the topics touched upon by the author might spur various interesting reactions from different readers, creating an opportunity for group di...more

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Jul 12, 2009 Joey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

What is there to say about an undertaker who moonlights as a poet?

In this collection of essays, Lynch ponders many of the questions about death and life, his intimate perspective providing a sometimes jaded, most often though, reverential view on society's obsession and revulsion of all things deathly.

Lynch has a lyrical voice, a prophet's insights and manages to meld these in compelling essays that always seem to just skirt the overarch.

He reminds us there is humor in death, as there is in lif...more

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Sep 24, 2008 Jan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting book. Some parts he was a little wordy. I wondered if he was completely off his subject, but then he would bring whatever he was talking about back around to the main subject. Gives a litte insight into the life of an undertaker.

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Oct 12, 2010 Juan Valera rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Lynch’s Golfatorium

Thomas Lynch
W.W. Norton Norton & Company, Inc., 1948

It may be disconcerting to some that a book engrossed in discussing death has so much advice to give about life, but so it is, and so this book does. Thomas Lynch’s The Undertaking: Life Studies From The Dismal Trade is aptly named; it is indeed a study of life through the view of the only poet/undertaker in the little town of Milford. Lynch has a uniquely blended sense of humor, black and morbid at times and chipper at o...more Lynch’s Golfatorium

Thomas Lynch
W.W. Norton Norton & Company, Inc., 1948

It may be disconcerting to some that a book engrossed in discussing death has so much advice to give about life, but so it is, and so this book does. Thomas Lynch’s The Undertaking: Life Studies From The Dismal Trade is aptly named; it is indeed a study of life through the view of the only poet/undertaker in the little town of Milford. Lynch has a uniquely blended sense of humor, black and morbid at times and chipper at others, usually one when you expect the other: “My former mother-in-law...would invariably give out with: ‘When I’m dead just cremate me and scatter the ashes.’... I’d take out my lighter and begin to play with it.” The myriad lessons Lynch passes on stem from all aspects of his life, beginning with his childhood, growing up with several siblings and the social stigma of their father working as an undertaker, through his phases of adulthood, working as one himself. The meandering way of storytelling Lynch has is uniquely suited to this kind of moral exploration; he tells the reader a story so that he can tell us another story, which in turn is the backbone of a third story, so on and so forth until the reader turns the last page. It would be unforgivable of anyone else, anyone with a lesser mastery of words than Lynch, but coming from him it just facilitates the reading. One never knows the point, the inherent meaning, behind a particular story until he gets there, at which point the reader is so thoroughly absorbed in his world that there is no longer any hope of misunderstanding or under-appreciating his take on life.

Mortician he may be, but do not make the mistake of thinking Lynch is some sort of death-aficionado. To this claim he responds, with his unique sense of humor: “I am no more attracted to the dead than the dentist is to your bad gums, the doctor to your rotten innards, or the accountant to your sloppy expense records.” A more normal man one would be hard-pressed to find: Lynch worries about the daily things, as do we all. The difference is his daily things include the prospect of building a cross between a funeral home and a golf course, a “Golfatorium.” This prospect becomes something of a central focal point of the book, not because it is a good (or even feasible) idea, but because it harmonizes celebrating life and respecting death. If nothing else, this is Lynch’s overall scheme in writing The Undertaking: to show readers, through the lens of his life, how out of balance life and death are in our lives. As much pomp and circumstance as we give to the dead, their funerals, ceremonies, wakes, and endless more, Lynch expresses the idea (several times) that the dead do not care. It is the job of the living to care for and about the dead, and what better place for this than one where the needs of both are met; a Golfatorium?
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Jul 07, 2009 Heyhansen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-fiction

At times funny and difficult, this is a book written by someone you don't really get to talk to that often, the undertaker. Definitely some enjoyable or maybe better said interesting, stories but it left me wanting a bit. It reminds me of a friend of mine who grew up with the undertakers son, the stories have a similar ring.
I think what disappointed me is the author, who reminds you he is a poet regularly and describes poets as the ones who work with "sex and death" seems fairly unsettled and a...more

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May 29, 2008 Lisa Pletz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lynch is my new favorite author. I should say "poet," because that's what he does in his other job. His prose just drips with poetry. He writes the way that I wish I could. Don't miss his work.

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Dec 04, 2011 Jeff rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jeff by: Hane Joehner

Shelves: 2011, non-fiction

Billed as a memoir by a Michigan poet-slash-mortician, this book reads more like a collection of essays on various topics relevant to the apparent fact that Thomas Lynch's life is dominated by poetry and mortality. I often enjoyed his look-at-me prose stylings but on several occasions his tone jarred with my feelings. Also, i occasionally suspected fabrication, which—after reading the caveats in the Acknowledgments—i presume might have been the direct result of Lynch's need to maintain the priva...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Tabitha Blankenbiller rated it 3 of 5 stars

The style and organization of The Undertaking is unique and thoughtful. The book follows no chronological narrative structure, but you do feel led thoughtfully on a journey through the author’s musings. It starts and ends with mirroring essays. The first, The Undertaking, explains the circumstances that led to Lynch’s profession and lets us in on a few basics that will help us keep up with him on the journey. Primarily his assertion that “the dead don’t care” and the reminder that death is a 100...more The style and organization of The Undertaking is unique and thoughtful. The book follows no chronological narrative structure, but you do feel led thoughtfully on a journey through the author’s musings. It starts and ends with mirroring essays. The first, The Undertaking, explains the circumstances that led to Lynch’s profession and lets us in on a few basics that will help us keep up with him on the journey. Primarily his assertion that “the dead don’t care” and the reminder that death is a 100% certainty. He ends by laying out his ideal funeral, with the constant digression that it doesn’t really matter what he says now, or what actually takes place at the discussed future event, as he’ll be in that apathetic inevitability by that time anyway. These bookends speak to the dichotomy of his subject matter: there is much to be said about death, but when it ultimately happens, it’s of little consequence.
Between them, during the “life” chapters of the book (which reflect the parallels he illustrates between births and deaths, and the chaos, joy and pain of the living), the essays vary widely in their subject matter but all clearly discuss death. Only one does not deal with physical death, but with the death of love and a relationship. What is amazing is Lynch’s ability to keep a single topic so fresh throughout the book by continually reinventing angles and viewpoints. He does not linger on single stories or points too long, moving through trade anecdotes, personal tragedies, religious theory and political debate with a quick pace. This allows him to continue to surprise while still staying on topic. He doesn’t lose readers to boredom by hammering points home for too many pages (as he easily could have done during his euthanasia discussion) or to poor transitions. His focus on mortality helps keep his narrative, and his frequent meanderings, in check.
If Lynch hadn’t mentioned several times that he was a poet (and the fact wasn’t lauded on the back of the jacket), one would probably be able to guess his primary genre orientation on their own. One of the most outstanding facets of the book is the precision he uses to craft beautiful sentences. They ring in your mind with such resonance that you have to read them several times, underline them, read them aloud to your husband who’s driving in the seat next to you. A wonderful example is “At this Uncle Eddie’s visage changed—adopting the distant and bedazzled gape of the ancient Mayan perplexed by the delicate mysteries of nothingness” (Lynch 152). That image of this plotting middle-aged man squinting up at the sky, completely overwhelmed at forces far beyond his control and the great uncertainty of it all just roots in my mind. He keeps it simple and lets the image paint itself. I respect that sparing writing, which trusts the reader to be smart enough to see it without too much pushing and prodding. I often forget that I’m not writing for comatose robots (which I’m going to go ahead and blame on my unfortunate professional experiences in copywriting). It’s absolutely a poetry skill, and one that we prose people need to pay closer attention to.
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Mar 05, 2012 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, memoir

Richard Bernstein said that, "Mr. Lynch emerges as a cross between Garrison Keillor and one of the Irish poets." This seems like a good description to me, though my experience with both is fairly limited. Lynch puts his poetry skills to good use, turning phrases, intertextualizing, crafting and coining new verbs ("kevork...the verb form of kevorkian, which proceeds from the infinitive "to kevork" should observe the usage guides applied, in practice, to the other high-volume verb of our generatio...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Stacy rated it 5 of 5 stars

You know, I knew I would love this book from the beginning. I wanted to give it 4.5 stars, but I would rather err on the high side because I think his writing and subject matter deserve this. He is a poet and I just love the way he says everything. He isn't overly wordy so you have to wade through the words, he just has a way of putting everything. This book is what I call essay style, where it seems the author took each chapter and subject at a time. It made me think of a topic I don't much, wh...more

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Jun 16, 2011 Rachelle Urist rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's good. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I didn't think I'd be drawn in so quickly and thoroughly. Thomas Lynch is a philosopher, poet, mortician, observer of life, a family man, and a practical fellow. I loved his musings. Loved his way with words. Loved his embrace of the family business - undertaking. Loved his toying with the word "undertaker" and his capacity to find amusement in people's reactions to his profession. The book is inspiring. Made me think in new ways about many things, in...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Liam rated it 5 of 5 stars

"The medical-technical parlance of death emphasizes disorder. We are forever dying of failures, of anomalies, of insufficiencies, of dysfunctions, arrests, accidents." (10)

"I sometimes think the only firms that put their names on what they do anymore are firms that make toilets and funeral directors." (34)

"The poor cousin of fear is anger." (54)

"Henry Nugent was hungry for love: that unencumbered approval by another of your species for your presence in their lives." (70)

"Where choice is enshrine...more

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Oct 12, 2010 Tris rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a nurse who works with older folks who have a tendency to become hospice patients and die (NOT my fault, I swear). I find myself thinking about these essays all the time. Thomas Lynch writes beautifully--dry and clear, betraying his inherent kindness all over the place. He has a perspective on the whole death and dying thing that I find very comforting, and manages to be funny without ever being disrespectful. I frequently disagreed with his opinions, but was able to appreciate them, none th...more

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Jun 24, 2009 Wyatt rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm definitely not a "pro-lifer" in the politcally-hijacked sense of the term, but I did really like Lynch's outlook on being pro-life in a more real sense: "For if we live in a world where the value of life is relative, and death is welcomed and well regarded, we live in a world vastly more shameful, abundantly sadder, and ever more perilous than all the primitive generation of our species who were sufficiently civilized to fill with wonder at the birth of new life, dance with the living, and w...more

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About Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch's stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, Harper’s, the Times (of London, New York, Ireland, and Los Angeles), and elsewhere. The Undertaking was a finalist for the National Book Award; he is also the author of Still Life in Milford, Booking Passage, Apparition & Late Fictions and Walking Papers. Lynch lives in Milford, Michigan, and West Clare, Ireland.

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Books by Thomas Lynch

Bodies in Motion and at Rest: On Metaphor and Mortality

Apparition & Late Fictions: A Novella and Stories

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Quotes from The Undertaking: Life ...

“Whatever’s there to feel, feel it – the riddance, the relief, the fright and freedom, the fear of forgetting, the dull ache of your own mortality. Get with someone you can trust with tears, with anger, and wonderment and utter silence. Get that part done – the sooner the better. The only way around these things is through them.” — 11 people liked it

“The advance of our technology is coincidental with the loss of our appetite for ethical questions that ought to attend the implications of these new powers. . . In the name of diversity, any idea is regarded as worthy as any other; any nonsense is entitled to a forum, a full hearing, and equal time.” — 4 people liked it

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