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war dance,” “the Mitford missile,” “the Mitford blast,” and “the Mitford fury.” They condemned the movement for cheaper, simpler funerals as a Red plot, and found an ally in Congressman James B. Utt of Santa Ana, California. He read a two-page statement about my subversive background into the Congressional Record. As for the purpose of my book, “she is really striking another blow at the Christian religion. Her tirade against morticians is simply the vehicle to carry her anti-Christ attack.…” His statement ended with the ringing words, “I would rather place my mortal remains, alive or dead, in the hands of any American mortician than to set foot on the soil of any Communist nation.” (In 1970 Mr. Utt exercised that option. His obituary in the New York Times, with subhead “Attacked Mitford Book,” records that during his ten terms in Congress “his most newsworthy action came when he called Jessica Mitford a ‘pro-communist anti-American.’ ”) The Utt utterance had backfired when the New York Times ran an editorial captioned “How Not to Read a Book.” The Times derided Utt’s “McCarthyite attack” and noted that the book had “evoked high praise from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergymen, as well as from reviewers and other commentators in all parts of the country,” and declared that Utt’s “credentials as a book critic can safely be dismissed as nil.”

Nor was the subject neglected abroad. German television asked me to go on camera in a documentary they wanted to produce. “But I don’t speak German.” “No matter, we will send a text for you to study.” They sent a camera crew as well, and so it was that I found myself reciting, “Ein teures Begräbnis [a costly funeral] ist ein status symbol, wie ein luxus Auto, ein schwimming pool im Garten, oder ein weekend in Miami Beach für hundert Thaler pro Tag.”

Enjoyable though it is to look back nostalgically at the immediate aftermath of publication of The American Way of Death, the basic question remains: Did it result in any fundamental improvements, any alleviation of the lot of the funeral purchaser? For a while, the answer seemed to be a qualified “Yes.” In 1977, fourteen years after The American Way of Death was published, I did further research on the funeral scene for an afterword entitled “Post Mortem” to a new paperback edition. Although the average cost, nationwide, of a funeral exclusive of burial plot had risen from $750 in 1963 to $1,650, in 1977, two major developments offered some hope for those who preferred a less cluttered and expensive send-off. The Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Protection Bureau had promulgated a “trade rule” which promised to go far to protect the unwary funeral buyer in his dealings with undertakers. Cremation had almost doubled in thirteen years; seeing the potential profitability in this trend, an enterprising businessman founded the Neptune Society, a for-profit direct-cremation venture that enjoyed immediate success and soon attracted imitators throughout the country.

However, more recent changes on the funeral front should go far to dispel any feeling of complacency on the part of consumers. Cremation, once the best hope for a low-cost, simple getaway, has become increasingly expensive; furthermore, morticians are fast developing techniques for upgrading this procedure into a full-fig funeral. The Federal Trade Commission’s much heralded trade rule has huge loopholes. Most sinister of all is the emergence over the last fifteen years of monopoly ownership of hitherto independent mortuaries and cemeteries.

These developments are the main reason for this updated version of The American Way of Death.

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Not Selling

When funeral directors have taxed me—which they have, and not infrequently—with being beastly about them in my book, I can affirm in good conscience that there is hardly an unkind word about them. In fact, the book is almost entirely given over to expounding their point of view. It is chock a block with their Wise Sayings, observations, exhortations, and philosophical reflections culled from funeral trade magazines and