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Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home Hardcover - 2013
by Sheri Booker
Summary
Six Feet Under meets The Wire in a dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming-of-age in a black funeral home in Baltimore
Sheri Booker was only fifteen years old when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea that her summer job would become nine years of immersion in a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, she found comfort in the funeral home, and soon has the run of the place, from its sacred chapels to the terrifying embalming room.
With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry.
This vibrant tour of a macabre world reveals an urban funeral culture where photo-screened memorial T-shirts often replace suits and ties and the dead are sent off with a joint or a fifth of cognac. Nine Years Under offers readers an unbelievable glimpse into an industry in the backdrop of all our lives.
Sheri Booker was only fifteen years old when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea that her summer job would become nine years of immersion in a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, she found comfort in the funeral home, and soon has the run of the place, from its sacred chapels to the terrifying embalming room.
With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry.
This vibrant tour of a macabre world reveals an urban funeral culture where photo-screened memorial T-shirts often replace suits and ties and the dead are sent off with a joint or a fifth of cognac. Nine Years Under offers readers an unbelievable glimpse into an industry in the backdrop of all our lives.
Details
- Title Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home
- Author Sheri Booker
- Binding Hardcover
- Edition First Edition, F
- Pages 261
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Avery Publishing Group, New York
- Date 2013-05-30
- ISBN 9781592407125 / 1592407129
- Weight 0.85 lbs (0.39 kg)
- Dimensions 8.5 x 6.46 x 0.96 in (21.59 x 16.41 x 2.44 cm)
- Library of Congress subjects BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, Undertakers and undertaking - Maryland -
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 2012049711
- Dewey Decimal Code B
Media reviews
“A darkly comic memoir of life and death in urban America.”
—Booklist Starred Review
—Booklist Starred Review
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Nine Years Under : Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home
by Booker, Sheri
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Nine Years Under : Coming of Age in an Inner City Funeral Home
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Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home
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