Christopher Hart
The Order of the Good Death
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and Other Lessons from the Crematorium
By Caitlin Doughty
Canongate 272pp £12.99 order from our bookshop
Caitlin Doughty has always had a fascination with death, so much so that, despite graduating from university with a degree in history, she decided to become a mortician. Such a career choice is surely one of those that prompt the question, ‘Why?’ In Doughty’s case, her own explanation is harrowing but pretty convincing. When she was just eight years old, she saw a toddler fall to its death in a two-storey shopping mall, and heard the mother’s howls of agony as she saw it fall.
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