Joshua Slocum (2)

This book updates two others by Lisa Carlson – 'Caring for Your Own Dead' (1987) and 'Caring for The Dead: Your Final Act of Love' (1997). This latest edition reflects twenty five years of legal battles, and explores popular trends towards cremation and more recently, 'green' (or actually, plain 'old-fashioned') burials, mainly with reference to the legal apparatus built up by the funeral industry over the past century.

The largest part of the book is a state-by-state compendium of legal and practical advice about how to save money and become more actively involved in choosing what to do when a loved one has died. The 'family-directed funeral' and 'home burial' are the tacit gold standard, but with their years of experience Lisa Carlson and Joshua Slocum have learned to appreciate the role that funeral directors can and generally do play. Their chapter about 'Complaints,' for example, is mostly about how complainers often get carried away, when the actual missteps and misleading salesmanship are just a part of the actual service that funeral homes provide.

More than anything, this book is a call for a better funeral industry, with more consumer's rights and a recognized place for families and congregations who want to 'do it themselves.'… (mehr)