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    Good Mourning
    Good Mourning
    Good Mourning
    Audiobook6 hours

    Good Mourning

    Written by Elizabeth Meyer

    Narrated by Cris Dukehart

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Elizabeth Meyer stumbled upon a career in the midst of planning her own father's funeral, which she turned into an upbeat party with Rolling Stones music, thousands of dollars worth of her mother's favorite flowers, and a personalized eulogy. Starting out as a receptionist, Meyer quickly found she had a knack for helping people cope with their grief, as well as creating fitting send-offs for some of the city's most high-powered residents.

    Meyer has seen it all: two women who found out their deceased husband (yes, singular) was living a double life, a famous corpse with a missing brain, and funerals that cost more than most weddings. By turns illuminating, emotional, and darkly humorous, Good Mourning is a lesson in how the human heart grieves and grows-whether you're wearing this season's couture or drugstore flip-flops.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 25, 2015
    ISBN9781494580407
    Author

    Elizabeth Meyer

    After working at an elite funeral home in New York City, Elizabeth Meyer became passionate about making death a less taboo and scary topic. She holds a bachelor of arts from New York University’s Gallatin School, an MBA from Cass Business School in London, a certification in thanatology from the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and is a licensed funeral director. Elizabeth regularly contributes to news articles, speaks on nationally syndicated radio programs, and has given guest lectures about death and dying. Currently, she advises private clients and consults for a website that deals with end-of-life issues. Elizabeth was raised and currently resides in New York City.

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    Reviews for Good Mourning

    3.5/5

    30 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      An entertaining memoir of how the author got into the funerary business. I read a lot of books on this topic but usually read about the downstairs aspects, this is the first time I read a book solely about the upstairs customer service aspect of it. This is a light-hearted book about a spoiled privileged rich girl whose beloved father dies. Realizing life must be more than parties, shopping and travel she feels a need to help people and ends up working at the most prestigious funeral home in New York City. Nobody takes her seriously at first, but she's on the road to recovering her humanity and along the way has lots of insider information on the well-to-do's funeral habits. This is the meat of the book and much more flippant than what I usually read but Meyer includes stories of the industry as a whole, a few tales of genuine pathos and shows herself to have grown to mature beyond the "trust-fund kid" crowd she belonged to in the beginning. An engaging memoir aimed at twenty- or thirty-somethings.
    • 2/5
      The narrator is really hard to relate to and pretty arrogant and unlikable.

      Her grief felt real enough. It’s hard to sympathize with someone who is hurting from a loss and comes across as if hers is worse than anyone else’s.

      By the end, I found her tolerable, and also I was disappointed that she never found a way to relate to her coworkers who resented her.



    • 3/5
      Interesting read. But it’s hard to relate to the “oh I’m just a rich girl working a blue collar job” agenda this whole book talks about.
    • 3/5
      "When I was twenty-one and most of my friends were Daddy-do-you-know-someone?-ing their way into fancy banks and PR firms, I was grieving the loss of my father, who had just died of cancer. That's how I found myself in the lobby of Crawford Funeral Home, one of several premier funeral homes in Manhattan, begging for a job one day."After finding satisfaction in taking charge of her beloved father's funeral arrangements, young New York socialite Elizabeth Meyer joins the staff at Crawford Funeral Home despite the objections of family and friends. Though hired as a receptionist, Elizabeth's curiosity about all aspects of the business, including the mortuary room, and her ability to relate to Crawford's upscale clientele, soon sees her appointed as the Family Services Coordinator.Unlike Caitlin Doughty's memoir Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, published earlier this year, Meyer's memoir has no real agenda, though she is sincere in her belief that mourners should have the opportunity to create a meaningful funeral experience that honours their loved one.Good Mourning has a largely lighthearted tone as Meyer shares her experiences at Crawford. From body fluids leaking all over her Gucci shoes, to missing brains, to making arrangements for dozens of Lamborghini's to line Madison Avenue. She is discrete as she describes the excesses of unnamed celebrity and society funerals, respectful as she tells of families grief, and is matter of fact about the more confronting aspects of the funeral industry.Eventually tiring of the infighting and corporate ethos plaguing Crawford, Meyer left after a few years, and after further study started her own private consulting firm, helping people to navigate the funeral industry.Authored with the assistance of freelance writer Caitlin Moscatello, Good Mourning is written in a conversational style. Elizabeth comes across charmingly enthusiastic, and genuinely passionate about her chosen career. Meyer's instinct for dealing with grieving families is remarkably mature, but her youth is apparent in what she shares of personal life. She has a difficult relationship with her mother, doesn't understand the hostility directed at her by her colleagues, and takes her wealth and privilege for granted.Good Mourning is a quick, interesting and entertaining read, and Elizabeth Meyer shares her story with honesty, humour, and compassion.
    • 5/5
      When I opened this book I was not sure what I would find inside. Was I going to cry for the next few days or was just sadness waiting in the pages? I was wonderfully surprised at the content; witty, clever, humorous, yes, sad at times, eye-opening, irreverent, and tongue in check with quite a different formula for funerals that I found I quite liked. In the Southern Bible Belt a funeral is almost a religious experience; Ms. Meyers ideas of the send off were so different from we have, I found myself saying, yes, why not! What a wonderful idea to have all the things that person loved and valued placed at the funeral. I found this a wonderful idea.The portrayals of the ultra rich as pampered, spoiled, selfish, royalty were educational as I did not realize the rich expected so much to be done for and given to them as a course of life, a product of their privileges. As Ms. Meyers says in this book, death is the one thing that unites all of us, rich or poor.I enjoyed this book from the first paragraph to last sentence as Ms. Meyers and Ms Moscatello entertained and kept my interest as they documented Ms. Meyers travels from an ultra rich privileged spoiled party planning young woman grieving for her father to a savvy, professional, successive, business woman with a knack for fulfilling the humane need at the time of grief in her own unique way; I learned more about the mortuary business than I hope I will ever need to know. I will admit I have often wondered how they did this or that, and Ms. Meyers answered those questions and more in a most entertaining way. I think I fell a little into envy with Bill, the ultimate surgeon, beautician, makeup artist, and all on dead bodies. I hope the person that does me up is as talented as Bill. From the hilarity of missing brains, mourning the Cardinal, mob funerals, friends dying of OD’s, Ms. Meyers seeing spirits, inter-office bickering and jealousy at the premier Crawford Mortuary, or Ms. Meyers just helping someone thru the death of their loved one with genuine caring, the book is a gem! I am so glad I did not pass up this book.I would give this book 5 stars. Thank you Ms. Meyers and Ms. Moscatello for this entertaining and informative book. I loved reading every word, and I want my funeral to be a party/celebration. In the South we have a saying, “when someone’s dies, we immediately have the frying pan in one hand and the chicken in the other,”, I am going to ask for them to grab guitars, banjo’s, and BBQ grills, let’s have a party.I received this book from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an honest opinion.