Making An Exit by Sarah Murray

From The Week of September 24, 2012 Death is a merciless disease. Infecting every living organism that has ever called Earth home, it burrows its necrotic tentacles into every cell, every system, every piece of tissue, insisting that, at some future point, its grave price be paid. It plays no favorites. It offers no cures. It requires only obedience, only acceptance of the ultimate fate of every thing and every one that has ever lived, cessation. Unsurprisingly, this particularly grim condition has woven itself deeply into all of Earth's cultures, authoring rites and reflections that honor the dead while passing onto the young the traditions of the ancients. But just how have these cultures decided to cope with death? What do they imagine happens to those they must farewell from this mortal coil? Ms. Murray explores in her examination of this most unavoidable affliction.

From funerals to wakes, from coffins to urns, from spiritualism to pragmatism, humanity's desire to cope with the inevitability of death has manifested in thousands of ways that range from the practical to the incomprehensible. While some cultures consider death a time of celebration, others submerge themselves in shrouds of mourning, releasing their hold on their loved ones with a searing mixture of reluctance and grief. Equally substantial divides exist amongst those who hold opinions on what comes after death. Is it the rapturous reward promised by the Christians to the righteous, is it the nothingness that the atheists conjure up from their rationalist souls, or is it something in-between, a doorway through which the soul wanders into the next life?

In an attempt to chronicle the traditions that have been shaped by these questions, Ms. Murray travels the world, delving into the customs of dozens of cultures to seek out our truths about death. While her journeys often find her hip deep in the macabre and the bizarre, they also shed light upon beautiful and warm celebrations of life that have been performed for thousands of years. From the funeral industry to the ethics of honoring the wishes of the newly departed, she ponders the existential while gaping at the gaudy, finding that, the more one contemplates the practicalities that lie beneath our deathly traditions, one finds them exceedingly disturbing.

And yet, for all that Making an Exit can sometimes leave the reader chilled by its subject and bewildered by the many responses to it, the work's abiding humor suffuses it with an enduring glow that cannot but charm. Ms. Murray's level-headed and open-minded approach to the examination of death finds not the cold shoulder of an inevitable ending, but the cheerful acceptance of what must be. Whatever may lie beyond death's doorway, there is no way but through. And for as different as our response to death might be, there is one commonality across our cultures, that to die loved and cherished is to leave a consequential mark upon the world.

Reflective and expansive, this is a surprisingly entertaining read for a subject so lifeless. Ms. Murray could not be a more engaging guide. (3/5 Stars)