The American Way of Death Revisited Read Online Free PDF Page A

against “the notorious Jessica Mitford,” “the Mitford blast,” “the Mitford missile.” But the main point, and the reason I had been invited to speak, was a preview of the forthcoming revised
American Way of Death
, based on recent developments in the death industries such as huge price increases, ingenious methods of extracting the maximum from cremation customers, and monopolization of the industry.
    After my talk, the first question was, “How much money did you make from
The American Way of Death
?” “Absolute tons,” I answered. “So much I can’t even count it—it made my fortune.” Audible groans from the audience.
    There were a few more questions, some about the Federal Trade Commission, some about the anticipated response to the Service Corporation International (SCI) invasion of Britain. In answer to the latter, I tried to explain that I thought it unlikely that the Brits would ever fall for the American way—the idea of people gathering to gaze at a corpse in a coffin wouldn’t catch on. Nor would they embrace the notion of undertakers as grief therapists. The session ended with a short, sharp interchange in which a funeral director refused to tell the assemblage what his exact prices were because, as he explained, he did not wish to divulge this information to his competitors.
    Later that day, some of us gathered round the lodge swimming pool for a chat with Tom Fisher. Karen Leonard, my researcher, asked him to elaborate on the point he had made at the meeting about outside forces. “Since you were in the business in 1963, can you talk a bit about the reaction to
The American Way of Death
?” she asked.
    In his Dakota Tom mode, Mr. Fisher replied: “I said in my speech that I applaud Jessica Mitford. She did us the greatest favor this industry ever experienced. We were flaccid and a little fat around our waist, and I said we were a little smug up here. I said that cleansed us of that. It put us on a diet. The problem was that the funeral directors overreacted so badly, the diet became a starvation diet, and they never found the strength, you know, for almost twenty-five years, tofind their way out—how to do something for themselves—so I always applaud her.”
    Enclosed in the seminar program was a sheet in which participants were asked to rate the speakers, with a space for comments on each. Avid to hear how I had scored, a few days later I rang up Ron Hast. Enoch Glascock came in first of the seven speakers, he said, but I was No. 2. The comments on my talk ranged from “very complimentary” to “very adverse.” He read out a few examples. Under complimentary: “A true brush with history, a wonderful perspective.” “Delightful, but she appeared to irritate many in the audience.” Adverse: “She’s still a cancer—how easily we forget all the damage she did, making a mockery of funeral service.” “Most unnecessary to provide a platform for a critic of our profession.” There had also been some phone calls, Mr. Hast told me: “One was somebody from Michigan State Funeral Directors Association, a pompous numskull, I couldn’t repeat his language!”
    In a subsequent
Mortuary Management
editorial entitled “Tuning In or Out,” Ron Hast made some of the same points as Tom Fisher had in his poolside chat. He stoutly defended his decision to invite me; as to those who threatened to stop their subscriptions to
Mortuary Management
, he would “encourage them to call us at our expense to cancel their subscriptions—then go and put their heads back in the sand.”
    “We may or may not agree with the beliefs or expressions of Jessica Mitford,” he wrote. “… Statistics now demonstrate throughout North America that simplicity or funeral avoidance
is
now the tradition in many regions. The American funeral-buying public has changed, and continues to change.… Ms. Mitford asked questions and listened to the answers more than thirty years ago, and produced something the