Anthropologist and playwright Naomi Westerman brings a remarkable blend of humor, quirkiness, and emotional depth to Happy Death Club, her compact and appealing collection of essays exploring death, grief, and the rituals that surround them.
Westerman's academic interest in global rituals around death became very personal when, in a short span of time, her aunt, her grandmother, and both parents died. Her response to these losses was to process her trauma by writing about it, resulting in nine essays that cover a surprising amount of ground. In one essay, Westerman explores the sustainability (or lack of it) of burial and cremation, for example, and presents some alternatives, including mellification, which uses honey to embalm the body. In another, she examines how the popularity of horror films and her own fascination with them has to do with how well they handle themes of grief. Later, Westerman looks at the flip side of this response with an incisive critique of the ways in which murder and bereavement are commodified through true crime in popular culture. In the particularly poignant "Fear and Loathing in Mexico City," Westerman recounts how the loss of her beloved pet rat led to an emotional breakdown during Día de Muertos. "In Mexico, death feels like a theme park, a roller-coaster of celebratory mortality," she writes, realizing that in this festive ritual there is a lessening of pain.
While Happy Death Club provides a fascinating guide to rituals and practices around death, Westerman's personal story and her warm, witty voice make this a valuable addition to the literature of grief. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor