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The Walmart Book of the Dead
As for who reads this book
And who follows its spells
I know your name
You will not die after your death
In Walmart
You will not perish forever
For I know your name
So begins this darkly comic incantation on the gods and scourges of the 21st century. The Walmart Book of the Dead was inspired by the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, funerary texts with accompanying illustrations containing spells to preserve the spirit of the deceased in the afterlife. In Lucy Biederman’s version, shoplifters, grifters, drifters, and hustlers, desirous children, greeters, would-be Marxists, wolves, and circuit court judges wander Walmart unknowingly consigned to their afterlives.
“This BOOK is for the dark hours, the seam that ties the end of the evening to sunrise, when the bad, wrong things people do in and around Walmart are a hospital infection, red Rit dye in a load of whites, a gun in a by the time the problem is identified, it’s already ruined everything.”
And who follows its spells
I know your name
You will not die after your death
In Walmart
You will not perish forever
For I know your name
So begins this darkly comic incantation on the gods and scourges of the 21st century. The Walmart Book of the Dead was inspired by the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, funerary texts with accompanying illustrations containing spells to preserve the spirit of the deceased in the afterlife. In Lucy Biederman’s version, shoplifters, grifters, drifters, and hustlers, desirous children, greeters, would-be Marxists, wolves, and circuit court judges wander Walmart unknowingly consigned to their afterlives.
“This BOOK is for the dark hours, the seam that ties the end of the evening to sunrise, when the bad, wrong things people do in and around Walmart are a hospital infection, red Rit dye in a load of whites, a gun in a by the time the problem is identified, it’s already ruined everything.”
70 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 26, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 4, 2017
This is brilliant.
No worries about what you might need for the afterlife. It’s all there under the fluorescent gleam of the 24/7 Walmart, where the wisdom comes not from papyrus but from a massive bin of cheap notebooks, where you really can take it with you (even if you can’t pay, provided you know the secrets), where the spells sometimes require a download or an American Express card.
Here we encounter the people we’ve all seen in Walmart, the gatekeepers, the slaves, the seekers, ourselves.
A huge thank you to vineleavespress.com for the advance copy, and congratulations to Lucy Biederman!
No worries about what you might need for the afterlife. It’s all there under the fluorescent gleam of the 24/7 Walmart, where the wisdom comes not from papyrus but from a massive bin of cheap notebooks, where you really can take it with you (even if you can’t pay, provided you know the secrets), where the spells sometimes require a download or an American Express card.
Here we encounter the people we’ve all seen in Walmart, the gatekeepers, the slaves, the seekers, ourselves.
A huge thank you to vineleavespress.com for the advance copy, and congratulations to Lucy Biederman!
March 1, 2019
Profoundly original and with a super-strong voice, encompassing satire, sincerity, vulnerability, enactments of natural human defensiveness, the cultural, the personal, the now and the distant past, the spiritual, the literal, the cosmic, the trivial. I just loved it.
February 6, 2024
Clearing Out the To-Read Shelf #3
Favorably reviewed on NPR in 2017; read with relish by yours truly in... 2024. Hmm. Okay, so this has been a To-Read for 7 years and I couldn't understand why no library ever carried it. When I finally caved and ordered it from a used bookstore, I expected to receive some hunking tome, like a book of spells from Hogwarts. Not so. This is a tiny little booklet of less than 60 pages, but man, does it pack a punch! It's highly entertaining (e.g. vignette about the raccoon waiting at night for Subway rejects) which I expected, but also quite poignant. I did NOT anticipate being *poigned* by this title. The vignettes about human trafficking and security guard violence were subtly, quietly gut-wrenching.
Favorably reviewed on NPR in 2017; read with relish by yours truly in... 2024. Hmm. Okay, so this has been a To-Read for 7 years and I couldn't understand why no library ever carried it. When I finally caved and ordered it from a used bookstore, I expected to receive some hunking tome, like a book of spells from Hogwarts. Not so. This is a tiny little booklet of less than 60 pages, but man, does it pack a punch! It's highly entertaining (e.g. vignette about the raccoon waiting at night for Subway rejects) which I expected, but also quite poignant. I did NOT anticipate being *poigned* by this title. The vignettes about human trafficking and security guard violence were subtly, quietly gut-wrenching.
December 26, 2017
This is 65 pages of small perfect SPELLS and written illustrations of the dead and living who die and live and live dead at walmart and you should read it.
Read
November 27, 2018Spells with their boundary warping desires appealing to higher and lower powers and 1-2 page character studies of ppl and their Walmart. A kind of social realism warped w/mystical pinhole burns.
August 23, 2025
8/22/25: this annual reread wasn't as maudlin as past ones. i was drinking a shiner bock on a 95 degree evening. the group of guys next to me were describing someone they know as "hobosexual". this year has been dark hours basically all the time so this little spellbook felt less like a portal and more like visiting a neighbor
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3/8/24: man this book is so fucking good…. it’s transportive and it does not really leave you feeling as though you’ve got a path by which to transport yourself back
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9/23/22: an excellent one-sitting read, hypnotic and moody gothic americana. “seven gates of the gods’ domain” possibly my favorite vignette of all time
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3/8/24: man this book is so fucking good…. it’s transportive and it does not really leave you feeling as though you’ve got a path by which to transport yourself back
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9/23/22: an excellent one-sitting read, hypnotic and moody gothic americana. “seven gates of the gods’ domain” possibly my favorite vignette of all time
August 9, 2019
Short and not always sweet
Well worth your time. Walmart serves as a Valley of the kings in this updated Egyptian Book of the Dead. Biederman’s prose glows often. I must have underlined thirty passages.
Well worth your time. Walmart serves as a Valley of the kings in this updated Egyptian Book of the Dead. Biederman’s prose glows often. I must have underlined thirty passages.
December 4, 2020
A beautiful collection of vignettes written in an honest yet poetic voice. Had to stop myself from reading the whole thing in one sitting.
April 30, 2025
Heartbreakingly thoughtful and human at its core. I don't know how Lucy Biederman managed to write such a masterpiece. My new personal prayer book. Growing up white trash - this hit home.
Directions for reading: be warned that you will need to read this book in segments or else you'll start sobbing. Read alongside a happier book to maintain wellbeing.
Directions for reading: be warned that you will need to read this book in segments or else you'll start sobbing. Read alongside a happier book to maintain wellbeing.
February 15, 2026
An indictment of American consumerism at its collision point with the desperate realities of class warfare, this earnest, deeply felt poetry collection doubles as an incisive sociological inquiry. It’s buoyed by its thoroughly unique voice, and by its wry invocations of Egyptian deities, funerary rites, and absurdist asides drawn from the pregnant banalities of daily life.
March 4, 2018
Short, sweet, interesting look into the world of Walmart through a very unique style
July 17, 2022
subject 5/5 execution 1/5
May 31, 2023
Wtf did I just read?
August 29, 2021
Did I really understand this? No. Did I enjoy it? Yea. I think.
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May 31, 2019Oh, hell. I read this when it first came out and forgot to write anything about it and now it's all gone out of my mind.
But I still HAVE the book, so that must mean something.
But I still HAVE the book, so that must mean something.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews