THE WHOLE DEATH
CATALOG
Acknowledgments
My gratitude to the following for their kindness and generosity:
Cynthia Beal
Kurt Brown
Elizabeth Burns
Dr. Stanley Burns
Elizabeth Clementson
Joe Coleman
Jaime Di Stefano
Jim Eaton
Rick Geary
Ned Grathwohl
Joseph Grattan
J. D. Gill
Tom Gilson
Emily Guthrie
Jan Heller-Levi
Mary Jones
Christoph Keller
Clay Kilgore
Maureen Lomasney
Maurizio Matteucci
Walter M. P. McCall
Erika Navarette
Ulrike Neurath- Sippel
Minda Powers- Douglas
Kaz Prapuolenis
Michelle Sanders
Beth Sanderson
Laura Schechter
Hazel Selina
Dr. Walter Sife
Al Skinner
Terry Starwalt
Suzy Stjohn
Julie Wiskind
About the Author
HAROLD SCHECHTER is a professor of American literature and culture at Queens College, the City University of New York. He is widely celebrated for both fiction and true-crime writing, including The Serial Killer Files. He lives in Brooklyn and Mattituck, Long Island, with his wife, the poet Kimiko Hahn.
As of press time, the URLs displayed in this book link or refer to existing websites on the Internet. Random House, Inc., is not responsible for, and should not be deemed to endorse or recommend, any website other than its own or any content available on the Internet (including without limitation at any website, blog page, information page), or elsewhere, that is not created by Random House.
A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2009 by Harold Schechter
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for
permission to reprint previously published material:
Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.: Excerpt from “Fancy Funeral,” words and music by Lucinda Williams, copyright © 2007 by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Lucy Jones Music. All Rights Administered by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
Taylor & Francis: Excerpt from “A Revised Death Anxiety Scale” by James A. Thorson and F. C. Powell from Death Anxiety Handbook: Research, Instrumentation, and Application, edited by Robert A. Neimeyer. Copyright © 1994 by Taylor & Francis. Used by permission of Taylor & Francis Group LLC.
W. W. Norton & Company: “In Childhood,” from The Artist’s Daughter by Kimiko Hahn, copyright © 2002 by Kimiko Hahn. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schechter, Harold.
The whole death catalog : a lively guide to the bitter end / Harold Schechter.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51251-2
1. Death. I. Title.
BD444.S383 2009
306.9—dc22 2009013779
www.ballantinebooks.com
v3.0
The Whole Death Catalog Page 41
