Writer Dances With Death In ‘American Afterlife: Encounters In The Customs Of Mourning’

ATLANTA - Feb. 25, 2014 - PRLog -- Readers are going to love Kate Sweeney’s “American Afterlife” – to death.

“American Afterlife: Encounters in the Customs of Mourning” (http://www.americanafterlifebook.com/) (March 15, 2014, University of Georgia Press) explores the evolution of grief, quirky memorial traditions, photographing the dead – and how cemeteries became the hottest dating spot in town.

As a fan of the HBO series “Six Feet Under,” Sweeney wanted to satisfy her own curiosity about death, loss and bereavement. She traveled the country to interview obituary writers, funeral directors and ordinary Americans who deal with death in everyday life.

“To paraphrase something I say in the book, when you’re fascinated by something and you search yourself to figure out why, and the answer turns out to be that you’re also utterly terrified by this same thing, I've found that it's best to just look the phenomenon in the face to figure it out,” Sweeney says.

“American Afterlife” is a book with a pulse. Sweeney writes with wit and respect, putting death into perspective with fascinating tidbits of history and poignant reflections about how people remember their loved ones who have passed away.

“From cooling boards to cremationists, obituarists to embalmers, Kate Sweeney’s ‘American Afterlife’ holds a mirror up to human mortality and mortuary praxis and gives us a reading of the vital signs,” says Thomas Lynch, author of “The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade.” “Her book braces and emboldens our eschatological nerve – a reliable witness and well-wrought litany to last things and final details.”

Sweeney lives in Atlanta, Ga., where she teaches creative writing workshops and creates award-winning radio stories (http://www.americanafterlifebook.com/written-and-audio-work/) for the local NPR station, WABE 90.1 FM. She is the curator of the popular bimonthly non-fiction reading series, True Story (http://truestoryga.com/), which Atlanta Magazine voted a Best Literary Event of 2012.