The American Way of Death Revisited

Thirty-five years ago, Jessica Mitford's savage and hilarious The American Way of Death was a number one bestseller and occasioned new legislation intended to reform the funeral industry. By the time of her death in 1996, Mitford had nearly finished a complete revision of that long out-of-print book--demonstrating, with her genius for outrageous and devastating muckraking, that far from being reformed, the industry is more pernicious than ever in its assault on our values and our wallets.

This revised edition contains completely new chapters on, among other things, prepayment ("Pay Now--Die Poorer") and the new multinational corporations ("A Global Village of the Dead"), as well as a jaundiced look at the failure of the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the laws that the original edition of this book helped bring about. And, of course, there's a complete update of the facts and figures that tell the tale. The American Way of Death is a classic work of investigative journalism, a brilliant piece of satirical writing, and an essential guide to dealing with the questionable (to put it politely) practices of an industry that--alas--sooner or later affects us all.