Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)

In which a 19th-century Boston wit turns his gimlet eye toward the departed, and finds them absolutely fascinating. Lucius M. Sargent here offers a sprawling, irreverent meditation on mortality, assembling anecdotes about Boston's elite buried beneath generations of dust: their ridiculous funeral finery, their elaborate mourning rituals, their determination to take even death seriously. Sargent dissects it all with sharp humor, mocking the grotesque excess of Irish wakes, pondering the terrifying possibility of premature burial with genuine unease beneath the levity, recalling colorful characters like Colonel Barnabas Clarke and Tailor Tommy Marshall with the affection of a man who clearly enjoyed their company more than he'd ever admit. This is not a somber meditation on the reaper. It is a companionable, often funny conversation with someone who refuses to look away from the peculiar ways the living choose to remember the dead, and in doing so, reveals just as much about the living themselves.