By Thomas Lynch (W.W. Norton:2000)

You don’t expect funeral directors to be poets or essayists, although, when you think of it, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be. Thomas Lynch is a thoughtful person who

is in love with words, and he’s adept at turning a phrase to catch you off guard and entice you to back up and re-read a passage, often several passages in a row. Introductions to books are usually dull, but not this one. This one is amusing and delightful. For example, he says the reason he became a writer is because he doesn’t golf, drink, do Tae Bo or day trading and he is married to an Italian woman.
I copied down several lines that I want to keep in my ‘favorite quotations’ document, and I’ll bet you will, too. Here’s a few:
- There is nothing like the sight of a dead human body to assist the living in separating the good days from the bad ones.
- I was searching for a word, one word that I could keep and remember…a key, a password by which I could return to the moment…a purse made of words to keep the treasure of it in.
- Specifically, Paul is telling the Romans that they needn’t be circumcised. This is good news on any given day, at least to the men of the congregation.
- …a toxic cocktail of ‘good ideas.’
Lynch’s philosophy of life, death, religion, fate, and humanity is wrapped up in words and phrases that instantly form a ‘holographic’ image that make you feel, ‘Ah, this man has got it!’ His positions on hot topics like abortion and ‘right to life’ are clearly and beautifully stated. And then there’s the chapter on Grimalkin, the cat he hated.
This book is definitely a “keeper.”