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Title: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
Author: Caitlin Doughty
Published: New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 184,690
Text Number: 544
Read Because: fan of the author's YouTube channel, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A memoir of one woman's experience as a crematory operator, and her evolving opinions on how death is regarded in Western culture. I came to this familiar with Doughty's YouTube videos; Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is more of the same: a heartfelt, morbidly funny, honest study of Western death culture, and a critique of how it distances us from death. This memoir offers a more cogent, engaging, but not particularly provoking personal story; as a result, there's less space to engage a large-scale argument of death culture—in particular, I'd've liked to have seen less about Doughty's progression and more about how the reader, too, can engage and change. But my quibbles are minor: this is a swift and engaging read, possessing of a fluid voice and inarguably heartfelt. I adore Doughty's work and presence, and if you haven't yet contemplated death culture then anything she's produced is an accessible beginning.
Author: Caitlin Doughty
Published: New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 184,690
Text Number: 544
Read Because: fan of the author's YouTube channel, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A memoir of one woman's experience as a crematory operator, and her evolving opinions on how death is regarded in Western culture. I came to this familiar with Doughty's YouTube videos; Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is more of the same: a heartfelt, morbidly funny, honest study of Western death culture, and a critique of how it distances us from death. This memoir offers a more cogent, engaging, but not particularly provoking personal story; as a result, there's less space to engage a large-scale argument of death culture—in particular, I'd've liked to have seen less about Doughty's progression and more about how the reader, too, can engage and change. But my quibbles are minor: this is a swift and engaging read, possessing of a fluid voice and inarguably heartfelt. I adore Doughty's work and presence, and if you haven't yet contemplated death culture then anything she's produced is an accessible beginning.
