{"product_id":"american-afterlife-encounters-in-the-customs-of-mourning-hardcover","title":"American Afterlife: Encounters in the Customs of Mourning - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\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\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 232\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 x 8.6 x 5.7 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 15, 2014\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52765082386739,"sku":"9780820346007","price":40.43,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/R2dLYnBFL1dPT2hpM0pTZ1lMVGQ5Zz09.webp?v=1764612190","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/american-afterlife-encounters-in-the-customs-of-mourning-hardcover","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}