The Undertaker's Wife

by Loren D. Estleman

The undertaker's wife waits; she weaves; she builds.

The undertaker practices his art, the Dismal Trade, with consummate skill. He has raised it to an art through the high craft of the Connable Method. Through it, he has managed to transform the ugliness of death into a thing of dignity and beauty. Victims brutalized by war, street fights, tavern brawls, ambushes, fires, every hazard in a raw West---these, in his hands, become presentable. Everywhere on the frontier, which erupts with life and death, he offers his to the rich of San Francisco, the bawds and ruffians of the Barbary Coast, to Kansas cowboys, outlaws, soldiers, and sheriffs. He is devoted to dignifying the dead.

She is devoted to making her marriage whole, in spite of the tragedy that surrounds it and, most especially, in spite of the tragedy that in one terrible afternoon strikes at its center.

Today the undertaker is called to disguise the suicide of a famous financier. It is high drama, for only his art can save America's financial markets. Her task on this day is secret, an act of understanding and dedication.

In the end, it is the undertaker's wife who, through love, is able to transcend death.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Westerns, Fiction, Historical

284 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2005

About the author

Loren D. Estleman is an American writer of detective and Western fiction. He writes with a manual typewriter.

Estleman is most famous for his novels about P.I. Amos Walker. Other series characters include Old West marshal Page Murdock and hitman Peter Macklin. He has also written a series of novels about the history of crime in Detroit (also the setting of his Walker books.) His non-series works include Bloody Season, a fictional recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and several novels and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.

Series:
* Amos Walker Mystery
* Valentino Mystery
* Detroit Crime Mystery
* Peter Macklin Mystery
* Page Murdock Mystery

Reviews

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a hard book to follow it took me a while to read as it didn't keep my interest the whole time but about the middle of the book I picked up and became more enjoyable

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of Estleman's Westerns. I grabbed it from the library shelf without looking at it very carefully. (Plus it had a "mystery" label applied.)

The Western is a genre I have assiduously avoided. I know Elmore Leonard works the genre, as did Robert Parker, but I just figured I could get by without reading about spurs and tobacco juice and cows and hangings and so on.

This is the story of a very successful undertaker who, with his wife, go from Michigan to the wild, developing San Francisco to a railroad boom town in Kansas. It's a fairly compelling story, and certainly doesn't conform to my preconceived notions of what a Western is.

There's some shootin' and drinkin' but it's not the stuff of cliche.

In short, a pleasant surprise that makes me want to explore the genre a bit.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some real moments of fabulous characterization, where I was just astonished with his clarity and vision. He is a good writer, but by the end, I felt it had fizzled and the ending was just "meh"-they lived and died sad, so why did I read this? Also, this man has written so many books, but this was the first time I had heard of him, why? He needs to look seriously at his marketing. This is probably one of the worst book covers I have ever seen. After 37 books, surely you should know more about how to market a book in today's world. I sound harsh, and I do like Loren's writing and will look for more, but the ending left me feeling unsatisfied.

[April Hochstrasser · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slightly boring look at what it was like to be an undertaker in the 1850-70 time period. The wife just tagged along and told the story, but wasn't really in the novel most of the time. She had a difficult life and no one wanted to be friends with them or her daughter because of what the dad did for a living. Then the daughter died and life fell apart. Some interesting historical characters were included like Wild Bill Hickock. I don't really recommend it if you want an exciting read.

[Becky Marietta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, really liked this book. Not for the squeamish, because the author details the whole undertaking process, but the story is SO well-written and engaging. I especially liked the bits with Wild Bill Hickock.

[Phair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly disappointing as I usually love Estleman's westerns. This had the usual excellent historical detail showing that the author must do a ton of research but the story never really went anywhere and the characters never seemed to grow or change.

[Bonnie M. Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating history of the mortician's trade from the mid 1800s.
While I found the details intriguing, it might be a bit off-putting for others.
The title seems a bit misleading as it deals with the undertaker more than his wife.

[Bayneeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once I got past the idea that the library had miscataloged this as a mystery, I was able to settle in and enjoy this. Interesting characters, including Wild Bill Hickok; interesting details about the practice of undertaking in the mid to late 1800s; and a good choice for a book discussion.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This may possible be the worst book I've ever read. I decided to stick with it and finish it, hoping it would get better, but it didn't.

[Charina · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay, not really impressed.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slow starter, it took me 3/4 of the book to get interested. I'm surprised I finished it, I kept hoping for more.

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. What an incredible book that flew under the radar for so much of my read and then nailed a ridiculously perfect ending that tied the entire thing with the prettiest of bows; one of the most complete and full stories I've ever read.

This tale of a post-Civil War undertaker and his wife as they traverse across the American frontier in search of a home and the "Dismal Trade" read very much like a Charles Dickens novel, full of harshness of the 1800s economic circumstances and sprawling characters/locations, but minus the drawn-out prose. Richard and Lucy, the main protagonists, felt like real people with real problems and their journey and lives together held so much weight. The fact that Estleman was able to loop the entire story together from end to beginning to middle, back to end again, was nothing short of spectacular and I enjoyed every page.

There is so much symbolism and thematic motifs that it's hard to even wrap my head around all of them: Richard more or less peaking with his skills as an undertaker and becoming something of a 'master of death', but is unable to "see" his wife deteriorating in health because he is both too engulfed by his work and his physical eyes (like hers) have been damaged by the various embalming fumes; this is just the tip of the iceberg from the eerie paradoxes and cycles of death that the novel revolves around.

Quotes I liked:
"After that, she could seldom say with certainty whether this or that had happened in Cheyenne or Sheridan, or this friend or that rival had made their acquaintance in the oven of Tucson or the icebox of Bismarck. In North Platte, she stepped into a stairwell in the middle of the night, thinking it was the water closet in Billings, and ended up in a heap at the bottom with a broken leg. The only constant was Richard, drunk every January fifteenth, and Victoria, looking gravely out from her oval frame on the north wall of every downstairs parlor, her back to the storm (p. 278)."

"...She thought of...Richard's face, beaming and proud, the first time he demonstrated the mechanism engineered to life his clients from the basement morgue...'where did you find Luke's smile?'. 'I found it in his sister's face.'. There was another shuddering chill, and the pause in her heartbeat. She waited unmoving for it to start up again. and then she saw Victoria with both eyes" (p. 282-283).

[Pat Delwiche · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t usually finish books that earn so low a score, but it was an audio book, and I was driving and radio reception was poor, so I kept going to the end. If I had been curious about the science and art of mortuary science, it might have been more engaging, but it was a story of the lives of an undertaker and his wife, and it just went on and on. There were hopes and losses, they moved from place to place, and eventually the protagonist died. I neither loved nor despised the characters; maybe that was the problem.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite up there with how I remember The Master Executioner, but moving, none the less. The peripatetic life of a very professional undertaker and his loyal wife. Similar to the first book, a Civil War veteran becomes master of his trade, one that deals with death, and then lives a lonely and unsatisfied life.

[Maddison Ebers · Rating 2 out of 5]

The beginning chapter was an allusion of interest and potential mystery masking the following chapters. Which, in harsh reality, were more of a dull, drawn out biography asside from the occasional entrance of a new unique and captivating character. The ending was bleak. Asside from a great first chapter and several moments of poignant literature I'm pondering over several hours of wasted time.

[Deedee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really a 3.5 stars. I rounded down because the last third of the novel was very sad.

[Susan Lorden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enjoyable!

[REN · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh. this was a real chore to finish.

[Kelsey Perkovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

good! some memorable characters and a little unexpected teariness

[Marvin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too depressing.

[Adam Shafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indeed the writing here is so well-researched and presents such an overwhelmingly canny image of the undertaker’s processes and predicaments at the turn of the 20th Century, that I can forgive the slow burning story this vivid description hangs from.

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a good story--nothing more, but nothing less--more about the undertaker than his wife, despite the title. It follows his career, from his apprenticeship with his father in Monroe, Michigan, through Civil War service, a failed attempt to challenge the corruption in San Francisco as the transcontinental railroad is completed, then a partnership in Fort Hays, Kansas (again with a corrupt sheriff in control) as the railroad is arriving, another partnership briefly in Virginia City, Montana, a stint teaching mortuary science in Chicago, another brief venture in St. Louis before ending his career in Buffalo as a nationally known undertaker.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am more familiar with Estleman's mystery works but decided to take the plunge into his western genre.
Lucy married Richard, an undertaker. He was the one who prepared her twin brother's body for burial after he died in an army camp at the beginning of the Civl War.
The story follows their lives.
I know from reading that Estleman does intensive research for the backgrounds of his novels. So I got a real sense of what it was like in the West after the Civil War - the sights and sounds and yes, the smells.
I have to give the book low marks for plot, but character development pulls my review upward.

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The undertaker transforms the ugliness of death into a thing of dignity and beauty. Even those victims of the raw West are rendered presentable. But, when he is called to disguise the suicide of a famous financier, his wife must save the day with her understanding and dedication.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#14 in the American West series.

The American West series - The Wild West claimed many lives; it was Richard Connable's job to bury the dead. From St. Louis to Denver to the Barbary Coast, we follow his story, told in fascinating technical and emotional detail by his wife Lucy.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating story around the turn of the 20th century. Great characters. Interesting mortuary science discussions.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for class (Book Lust - genre reading)

[Arielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved his writing! What an amazing story.

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a terrific book! A great read. Publisher's Weekly's review sums it up well: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0...

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful story from the master of Western historical fiction.