This is an interesting look at the history of how humans have dealt with their dead and how our biases around race, culture, and status, as well as financial incentives, have shaped these practices. Most interesting to me is how the design of modern theme parks and subdivisions is influenced by cemetery design. It's lightly peppered with Dad Jokes and an excellent follow-up to This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust. ( )

The title pretty much says it all. He gives the history of not just the cemeteries, but of the area in general, as well as who designed the graveyard and the people who are buried there. Each chapter of the book is about a different American cemetery, starting with colonial Jamestown and ending with Hollywood Forever, and then devoting chapters to cremation, green cemeteries, and the way that a person can stay “alive” indefinitely via computer files and the internet.

One thing that comes up repeatedly is how the American Way of Death (as Jessica Mitford named it a few decades ago) is a money making machine. The plot purchase, the coffin, the embalming, the services, the maintenance of the gravesite… it all adds up tremendously. And they don’t tell you that most of it isn’t necessary. You don’t need a mahogany and brass coffin that’s better made than many people’s furniture. You don’t need a concrete vault in most cases. Embalming isn’t required in most jurisdictions, unless the body is being held for over a certain amount of time. But it’s easy to lay a guilt trip on a grieving family- “It shows your respect for your father!” “Don’t you love your mother enough to buy the very best?”- and upsell them.

Another item that comes up several times is the utter disrespect for existing graves when the well to do or those in power (usually the same thing…) wanted to use the land for something else. The early white colonists rode roughshod over Native American graveyards, whether it was for building, their own graveyards, or for agriculture. The poor had their graveyards built over in more than one place. A graveyard for African-Americans in New York had Central Park built over it- the grave markers were moved, but the bodies weren’t.

The book is well written, presented as a travelogue; anywhere the author travels, he tries to call in at any graveyards in the area, especially well known ones. His family finds this rather tiresome, given that they don’t share his enthusiasm for cemeteries (Hollywood Forever was found more acceptable than most, but just barely). Anyone who likes to walk through graveyards will enjoy this book. ( )

When I was a girl, we kids would bike ride through a local cemetery where pheasant could still be seen. My dad would drive us to another local cemetery to feed the ducks in the duck pond. These were places with lots of trees and natural beauty, and white headstones, some with towering statues. I have always enjoyed going to cemeteries in the towns we have lived in. And as a genealogist, we have visited cemeteries to discover our family history. The old ones hold beautiful headstones and arching trees. Newer ones have plaques in the ground, all open grassland.

Once, when my son was a preschooler, he asked to go to a cemetery we often passed. He asked me to read the headstones. Many were designated as veterans. Some were entire families who died at the same time. As we went back to the car, I asked him what he learned. “Don’t never ever ever ever die,” he told me.

That’s the problem. We do all die. This pandemic has brought the reality closer these past few years. At this writing, 1 out of every 316 people in my county have died of Covid-19. Add the fact that I turned 70 this summer, and last things are often in the back of my mind.

I used to want to be cremated. But what I want now is a burial without chemicals and vaults, to decay and return to the cycle of life as soon as possible. That’s eternity. I don’t need a plot of land and a monument that will be meaningless in a generation. I want to be a tree, a flower, a blade of grass.

Of course, our earliest burials did consist of placement in the ground, with artifacts from life, or our bodies were exposed to the elements and the bones collected and buried.

How did the elaborate Death Industrial Complex arise? What is the environmental impact of putting millions of galleons of chemicals in the ground, or the chemicals and fuel needed to maintain a plush carpet of grass? How we remember the dead has changed over millennia. We have erected monumental structures and we scatter ashes in beloved locations. What history is obscured or revealed in cemeteries, those hidden and those laid out like theme parks?

Over My Dead Body may be about a grim subject, but it’s an enjoyable read, filled with personal anecdotes and historical and sociological insight. Greg Melville takes us to the earliest graveyards at Jamestown and Plymouth, and to seek unmarked slave graveyards and the destroyed Native American burial grounds. He shows how innovations in cemeteries impacted society and how pandemics and war forced new practices. Embalming arose to preserve the bodies of the Civil War dead so they could be returned for burial in their hometown. The need for a Jewish burial ground impacted the inclusion of religious freedom in the Bill of Rights. Transcendentalists found inspiration in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, the first protected natural habitat.

Melville shares the difficulty of our personal choices for our remains, the tug between sustainability and claiming a place in the world were we will be remembered.

It’s an enjoyable, sometimes devesting, and always enlightening read.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. ( )

Over My Dead Body by Greg Melville is history told through places, in this case cemeteries. It is far more informative than it might seem in part because it is written in such an engaging manner.

Like history told through objects, this one touches on US history, cultural and social history, a bit of folklore in places, and running throughout a history of human interment since the first colony in what became the United States. The history of each cemetery is wrapped up in the history of the period of its creation as well as, often, later events. So we get a nice glimpse of what concerned every person, how they and their family would handle their remains.

This is also a recap of some of Melville's travels and that personal element is part of what makes this an enjoyable read. Family dragged along, people encountered while there, these help bring the history into our present as well as show how anybody can, if so inclined, explore aspects of the history around them.

If you have visited some of these, you will still likely learn something you didn't know about them (I certainly did). While not a guide as such, this is an excellent source of places to visit when you happen to be in certain parts of the country. Or hop in your RV and make an extended trip.

This should appeal to those who like history that is not the usual fare and even those who enjoy travelogues (though this doesn't, I don't think, count as one). If you like to make your reading a multi-platform experience, searching for pictures online of some of these is quite rewarding, especially the stunning gate to Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )