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Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries
A lively tour through the history of US cemeteries that explores how, where, and why we bury our dead
The summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown, and thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a rich story the place told of his town and its history. Thus was born Melville’s lifelong curiosity with how, where, and why we bury and commemorate our dead.
Melville’s Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places that have mirrored the passing eras in history but have also shaped it. Cemeteries have given birth to landscape architecture and famous parks, as well as influenced architectural styles. They’ve inspired and motivated some of our greatest poets and authors—Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson. They’ve been used as political tools to shift the country’s discourse and as important symbols of the United States' ambition and reach.
But they are changing and fading. Embalming and burial is incredibly toxic, and while cremations have just recently surpassed burials in popularity, they’re not great for the environment either. Over My Dead Body explores everything—history, sustainability, land use, and more—and what it really means to memorialize.
Locales visited in Over My Dead Body
Shawsheen Cemetery – Bedford, Massachusetts
The 1607 Burial Ground – Historic Jamestowne, Virginia
Burial Hill – Plymouth, Massachusetts
Colonial Jewish Burial Ground – Newport, Rhode Island
Monticello’s African American Graveyard – Charlottesville, Virginia
Mount Auburn Cemetery – Cambridge, Massachusetts
Green-Wood Cemetery – Brooklyn, New York
Laurel Grove Cemetery – Savannah, Georgia
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery – Concord, Massachusetts
Central Park – New York, New York
Gettysburg National Cemetery – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Arlington National Cemetery – Arlington, Virginia
Woodlawn Cemetery – Bronx, New York
Boothill Graveyard – Tombhill, Arizona
Forest Lawn Memorial-Park – Glenwood, California
The Chapel of the Chimes – Oakland, California
Hollywood Forever Cemetery – Los Angeles, California
Nature's Sanctuary – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown, and thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a rich story the place told of his town and its history. Thus was born Melville’s lifelong curiosity with how, where, and why we bury and commemorate our dead.
Melville’s Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places that have mirrored the passing eras in history but have also shaped it. Cemeteries have given birth to landscape architecture and famous parks, as well as influenced architectural styles. They’ve inspired and motivated some of our greatest poets and authors—Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson. They’ve been used as political tools to shift the country’s discourse and as important symbols of the United States' ambition and reach.
But they are changing and fading. Embalming and burial is incredibly toxic, and while cremations have just recently surpassed burials in popularity, they’re not great for the environment either. Over My Dead Body explores everything—history, sustainability, land use, and more—and what it really means to memorialize.
Locales visited in Over My Dead Body
Shawsheen Cemetery – Bedford, Massachusetts
The 1607 Burial Ground – Historic Jamestowne, Virginia
Burial Hill – Plymouth, Massachusetts
Colonial Jewish Burial Ground – Newport, Rhode Island
Monticello’s African American Graveyard – Charlottesville, Virginia
Mount Auburn Cemetery – Cambridge, Massachusetts
Green-Wood Cemetery – Brooklyn, New York
Laurel Grove Cemetery – Savannah, Georgia
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery – Concord, Massachusetts
Central Park – New York, New York
Gettysburg National Cemetery – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Arlington National Cemetery – Arlington, Virginia
Woodlawn Cemetery – Bronx, New York
Boothill Graveyard – Tombhill, Arizona
Forest Lawn Memorial-Park – Glenwood, California
The Chapel of the Chimes – Oakland, California
Hollywood Forever Cemetery – Los Angeles, California
Nature's Sanctuary – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
272 pages, Hardcover
First published October 4, 2022
558 people are currently reading
14416 people want to read
About the author
Greg Melville
5 books59 followersGREG MELVILLE is an author, adventure journalist, and tombstone tourist whose writing has appeared in many of the country's top print publications including Outside, Men's Health, National Geographic Traveler, and The New York Times. He is also a U.S. Navy veteran.
Melville's latest project is "Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries. His acclaimed environmental book Greasy Rider was the 'campus common read' for six colleges and universities, and named by the American Library Association as one of the top 100 "Outstanding Books for the College Bound" for the first decade of the 2000s. He has served as an editor at Men's Journal, Sports Afield, and Footwear News and as a crime reporter for a daily newspaper in Northern Virginia.
Melville taught English for four years at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was the lone recipient of the school's Apgar Award for Teaching Excellence in 2019.
Born and raised in the Boston area, he now lives with his wife and two kids in Delaware.
Melville's latest project is "Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries. His acclaimed environmental book Greasy Rider was the 'campus common read' for six colleges and universities, and named by the American Library Association as one of the top 100 "Outstanding Books for the College Bound" for the first decade of the 2000s. He has served as an editor at Men's Journal, Sports Afield, and Footwear News and as a crime reporter for a daily newspaper in Northern Virginia.
Melville taught English for four years at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was the lone recipient of the school's Apgar Award for Teaching Excellence in 2019.
Born and raised in the Boston area, he now lives with his wife and two kids in Delaware.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 721 reviews
July 25, 2022
When I was a girl, we kids would bike ride through a local cemetery where pheasant could still be seen. My dad would drive us to another local cemetery to feed the ducks in the duck pond. These were places with lots of trees and natural beauty, and white headstones, some with towering statues. I have always enjoyed going to cemeteries in the towns we have lived in. And as a genealogist, we have visited cemeteries to discover our family history. The old ones hold beautiful headstones and arching trees. Newer ones have plaques in the ground, all open grassland.
Once, when my son was a preschooler, he asked to go to a cemetery we often passed. He asked me to read the headstones. Many were designated as veterans. Some were entire families who died at the same time. As we went back to the car, I asked him what he learned. “Don’t never ever ever ever die,” he told me.
That’s the problem. We do all die. This pandemic has brought the reality closer these past few years. At this writing, 1 out of every 316 people in my county have died of Covid-19. Add the fact that I turned 70 this summer, and last things are often in the back of my mind.
I used to want to be cremated. But what I want now is a burial without chemicals and vaults, to decay and return to the cycle of life as soon as possible. That’s eternity. I don’t need a plot of land and a monument that will be meaningless in a generation. I want to be a tree, a flower, a blade of grass.
Of course, our earliest burials did consist of placement in the ground, with artifacts from life, or our bodies were exposed to the elements and the bones collected and buried.
How did the elaborate Death Industrial Complex arise? What is the environmental impact of putting millions of galleons of chemicals in the ground, or the chemicals and fuel needed to maintain a plush carpet of grass? How we remember the dead has changed over millennia. We have erected monumental structures and we scatter ashes in beloved locations. What history is obscured or revealed in cemeteries, those hidden and those laid out like theme parks?
Over My Dead Body may be about a grim subject, but it’s an enjoyable read, filled with personal anecdotes and historical and sociological insight. Greg Melville takes us to the earliest graveyards at Jamestown and Plymouth, and to seek unmarked slave graveyards and the destroyed Native American burial grounds. He shows how innovations in cemeteries impacted society and how pandemics and war forced new practices. Embalming arose to preserve the bodies of the Civil War dead so they could be returned for burial in their hometown. The need for a Jewish burial ground impacted the inclusion of religious freedom in the Bill of Rights. Transcendentalists found inspiration in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, the first protected natural habitat.
Melville shares the difficulty of our personal choices for our remains, the tug between sustainability and claiming a place in the world were we will be remembered.
It’s an enjoyable, sometimes devastating, and always enlightening read.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Once, when my son was a preschooler, he asked to go to a cemetery we often passed. He asked me to read the headstones. Many were designated as veterans. Some were entire families who died at the same time. As we went back to the car, I asked him what he learned. “Don’t never ever ever ever die,” he told me.
That’s the problem. We do all die. This pandemic has brought the reality closer these past few years. At this writing, 1 out of every 316 people in my county have died of Covid-19. Add the fact that I turned 70 this summer, and last things are often in the back of my mind.
I used to want to be cremated. But what I want now is a burial without chemicals and vaults, to decay and return to the cycle of life as soon as possible. That’s eternity. I don’t need a plot of land and a monument that will be meaningless in a generation. I want to be a tree, a flower, a blade of grass.
Of course, our earliest burials did consist of placement in the ground, with artifacts from life, or our bodies were exposed to the elements and the bones collected and buried.
How did the elaborate Death Industrial Complex arise? What is the environmental impact of putting millions of galleons of chemicals in the ground, or the chemicals and fuel needed to maintain a plush carpet of grass? How we remember the dead has changed over millennia. We have erected monumental structures and we scatter ashes in beloved locations. What history is obscured or revealed in cemeteries, those hidden and those laid out like theme parks?
Over My Dead Body may be about a grim subject, but it’s an enjoyable read, filled with personal anecdotes and historical and sociological insight. Greg Melville takes us to the earliest graveyards at Jamestown and Plymouth, and to seek unmarked slave graveyards and the destroyed Native American burial grounds. He shows how innovations in cemeteries impacted society and how pandemics and war forced new practices. Embalming arose to preserve the bodies of the Civil War dead so they could be returned for burial in their hometown. The need for a Jewish burial ground impacted the inclusion of religious freedom in the Bill of Rights. Transcendentalists found inspiration in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, the first protected natural habitat.
Melville shares the difficulty of our personal choices for our remains, the tug between sustainability and claiming a place in the world were we will be remembered.
It’s an enjoyable, sometimes devastating, and always enlightening read.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
December 25, 2023
Over My Dead Body is both educational and entertaining! For example, did you know that Facebook is home to 30 million dead people? Many people are eschewing a traditional funeral service and/or an obituary to mark their passing and catalogue their lives, instead, living on in an online presence in social media. We are quickly becoming "digitally immortal."
After all, "Every life owns an epic tale even if no-one alive remembers it."
Greg Melville writes that, "here he tries to tell the stories of American graveyards - these vast outdoor archives of art, history, literature, religion, life and death before they disappear."
Cemeteries are struggling to find funding for upkeep, and to remain relevant into the future. "They are now competing with the meta verse in a world where social media preserves a person's existence with infinitely more power, reach and data than an etched piece of granite planted in the ground."
Some cemeteries have come up with creative ideas such as selling plots near late celebrities. One such cemetery is Père Lachaise in Paris, France. I visited this cemetery back in 2015. Père Lachaise is home to Jim Morrison, Frédéric Chopin, Édith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Marcel Marceau, Olivia de Havilland, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Georges Bizet, and Sir Richard Wallace among others.
Side note: I have viewed Sir Richard Wallace's beautiful art collection in London at The Wallace Collection, a museum housed at Hertford House in Manchester Square. It was the most peaceful and beautiful experience.
On a more serious note, did you know that cemeteries remain segregated to this day? Also, the remains of indigenous people have been displaced without regard.
Melville's final observation, "what's most sacred in this world isn't what happens to our bodies after death but how and for whom we live our lives."
After all, "Every life owns an epic tale even if no-one alive remembers it."
Greg Melville writes that, "here he tries to tell the stories of American graveyards - these vast outdoor archives of art, history, literature, religion, life and death before they disappear."
Cemeteries are struggling to find funding for upkeep, and to remain relevant into the future. "They are now competing with the meta verse in a world where social media preserves a person's existence with infinitely more power, reach and data than an etched piece of granite planted in the ground."
Some cemeteries have come up with creative ideas such as selling plots near late celebrities. One such cemetery is Père Lachaise in Paris, France. I visited this cemetery back in 2015. Père Lachaise is home to Jim Morrison, Frédéric Chopin, Édith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Marcel Marceau, Olivia de Havilland, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Georges Bizet, and Sir Richard Wallace among others.
Side note: I have viewed Sir Richard Wallace's beautiful art collection in London at The Wallace Collection, a museum housed at Hertford House in Manchester Square. It was the most peaceful and beautiful experience.
On a more serious note, did you know that cemeteries remain segregated to this day? Also, the remains of indigenous people have been displaced without regard.
Melville's final observation, "what's most sacred in this world isn't what happens to our bodies after death but how and for whom we live our lives."
September 23, 2025
Author Greg Melville is a decorated Navy veteran, adventure writer, and award-winning teacher at the United States Naval Academy. During college, Melville's summer job mowing cemeteries in his hometown of Bedford, Massachusetts ignited a fascination with graveyards. Greg writes, "The town's past came alive...I learned who died rich and who died poor...who lived full lives and whose lives were cut short...I became familiar with the long-forgotten names of war heroes...every gravestone seemed like a mystery waiting to be solved."
Author Greg Melville
Cemeteries are the time capsules of our communities, and for this book Melville researched and visited graveyards across the country, often during family vacations. Here, Melville relates the story of burial grounds as archives of art, history, literature, religion, commemoration, discrimination, life, death, and more. Melville also uses cemeteries as hubs to discuss historical and cultural influences from around the world, so the book is full of interesting information.
To get things rolling, Melville mentions an array of historic burial customs, including a prehistoric cave interment in Wales; an ocher-covered Clovis (hunter-gatherer) baby in America; pyramids in Egypt; tombs in Greece; feng shui interments in China; cremations in the Roman Empire; and funeral traditions around the world, associated with different religious practices.
For brevity, I'll just include highlights of some American resting places.
✿ Historic Jamestowne, Virginia (established 1607)
Jamestowne (or Jamestown) is the site of England's first permanent North American settlement. When the original colonists landed there, Jamestowne was mosquito-infested and marshy, and deaths from disease, starvation and weather were rampant.
Depiction of Jamestowne
The residents buried the deceased in unmarked mass graves, both to save time, and to obscure the number of fatalities from enemies like the Algonquian peoples. An exception was made for the Jamestowne leaders, who were interred with more respect.
Archaeologists excavated graves of Jamestowne leaders
Not all the deceased got buried though. The worst drought in centuries turned meager gardens to dust, and Jamestowne's famine-stricken people ate their horses, cats, dogs, rats, mice...and then their own dead.
✿ Burial Hill: Plymouth, Massachusetts (Established 1622)
Burial Hill contains some of the Mayflower's original passengers, who landed in 1620. Plymouth was an inhospitable place, and weather, malnutrition and disease killed half the Mayflower migrants within months of landing. What saved the rest was grave robbery. The local Wampanoag people buried their dead with stores of corn, wheat, and beans, and the Pilgrims dug up the graves and took the food.
The burials of deceased colonists took place at night, to hide the decimation from the Wampanoag, and Pilgrims later planted crops over the graves, to disguise the burial grounds. When the Pilgrims became more firmly established they built a stone fort/church on a steep hill, and designated the Burial Hill 'cemetery' beside it. Gravestones didn't appear until the late 1600s, and interments continued until 1950.
Depiction of Burial Hill
Relations between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag were not overtly hostile at first, but when fighting broke out the Indians lost their lives and land, and over time, most of their burial grounds were looted and destroyed. Eventually, the terrible treatment of Indians raised public concern, and in 1990 Congress passed the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, which allowed tribes to reclaim items (including human remains) from museums and federal agencies.
✿ Colonial Jewish Burial Ground: Newport, Rhode Island (Established 1677)
This small cemetery, with an Egyptian-style granite entryway, is the oldest Jewish holy space still standing in the United States. It was established during a time of repressive prohibitions against the practice of Judaism in both Europe and the North American colonies, and its creation directly influenced the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, protecting the right to worship without government restraint.
Sadly, symbols of religious liberty like this are targets for intolerance.
Entrance to the Colonial Jewish Burial Ground
✿ Monticello African American Graveyard: Charlottesville, Virginia (Established Late 1700s)
Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson estate, contains the Monticello Graveyard, where Jefferson lies with relatives, descendants, and a few friends. Monticello's mansion was built and maintained by slaves; enslaved people cultivated Monticello's crops; and Jefferson had children with his slave Sally Hemmings. However no Black people are interred in the Monticello Graveyard.
Monticello's lone identified African American burial ground was discovered in 2001, and it's unknown how many more slave burial grounds lie on the estate, or where they might be. Melville observes, "Southern plantation owners like Jefferson took active measures to keep African American graveyards and funeral practices on their properties out of general sight, and mind. The locations of these spots were almost never put into any written record. This is why we only know the locations of a tiny fraction."
Monticello African American Graveyard
✿ Mount Auburn Cemetery: Cambridge, Massachusetts (Established 1831)
Mount Auburn Cemetery has fern-carpeted groves of ancient oaks and maples; lily-filled ponds; shrubs, roses, azaleas, and zinnias; turtles, lizards, and coyotes - along with population of roughly 100,000 deceased people. This and other rural-style cemeteries, inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, turned burial grounds into tourist destinations.
Mount Auburn Cemetery
✿ Green-Wood Cemetery: Brooklyn, New York (Established 1838)
Almost from the start, Green-Wood Cemetery attracted New York's finest sculptors and architects; it inspired writers and poets; it lured painters looking for a muse; it was the city's first major public art museum; and it brought "a constant influx of sublime new art to the masses like never before in America." Many people believe Walt Whitman's poems, 'Leaves of Grass', is a tribute to Green-Wood. Among the 600,000 people buried in Green-Wood are countless artists, authors, musicians and other notables.
Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn has a view of the Manhattan Skyline
✿ Laurel Grove Cemetery: Savannah, Georgia (Established 1853)
The Laurel Grove Cemetery was modeled on Green-Wood, but it's split into two sections: North and South. Laurel Grove North, the traditionally white section, has wide oak-shaded avenues with Gothic statues and flamboyant grave markers. Laurel Grove South, the traditionally Black section, has narrow paths, fewer trees, and browned patches of grass. Melville notes, "In the southern United States...racial segregation of the dead is still very much alive."
Laurel Grove Cemetery South has a section where slaves are buried
✿ Gettysburg National Cemetery: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (Established 1863)
The Civil War's tremendous death toll, about 620,000, brought with it the problem of burials. Most of the dead were laid in anonymous mass ditches on battlefields or in local churchyards. Many people believed this denied salvation to their loved ones, who couldn't be properly bathed, groomed, and mourned at home.
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, at the Gettysburg National Cemetery, diminished these worries by insuring a 'good death' could happen on the battlefield, in the name of justice. Americans came to regard national cemeteries as holy grounds that insure salvation, and - to allow families to bring home loved ones for a good burial - the embalming industry mushroomed. (An example of unintended consequences.)
Gettysburg National Cemetery
✿ Boothill Graveyard: Tombstone, Arizona (Established 1878)
Old cemeteries like Boothill Graveyard are common in the remains of frontier settlements, from Dodge City, Kansas to Deadwood, South Dakota. These burial grounds - which contain the bodies of sheriffs' deputies, bandits, bank tellers, and saloonkeepers - lend authenticity to a locale's touristy Old West heritage.
What's missing from these graveyards are the bodies of the thousands of Chinese immigrants who worked in the gold and silver mines and built the transcontinental railroad. Boothill Cemetery's two westernmost rows, known as the Chinese section, have seven marked graves belonging to people of Chinese descent, and a few unmarked graves. A group of organizations known as the Six Companies, that facilitated Chinese immigration to America, also shipped the bodies of Chinese immigrants back to their homeland for a traditional burial.
This was just as well, because cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco banned Chinese people from local cemeteries, and forced them to pay for interment in potter's fields - where the white poor, homeless, and criminals were buried for free.
Grave Markers in Boothill Graveyard
✿ Nature's Sanctuary, West Laurel Hill Cemetery: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Established 2008)
"Nature's Sanctuary, where graves are dug by hand and bodies are buried in simple shrouds or biodegradable caskets - eliminates nearly all the expensive, eco-hostile burial must-haves placed upon people by the Death Industrial Complex."
The 'green' burial ground dispenses with caskets, vaults, embalmment, and gravestones. It also helps the environment. Each year, burials in America deposit 4.3 million gallons of toxic embalming fluids into the ground; inter 20 million board feet of wood; 1.6 million tons of concrete; and 81,000 tons of metal. There are also chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides used to keep cemetery grounds looking good, along with regular mowing with fuel-guzzling machines.
On the downside, natural cemeteries violate the American ideal of leaving a mark -having a little plot of earth to call our own, and a gravestone noting, 'I was here.'
Nature's Sanctuary section in West Laurel Hill Cemetery
Other cemeteries highlighted in the book are:
✿ Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts - the country's first conservation project.
Famous graves at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
✿ Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia - the cemetery, built on Robert E. Lee's hilltop home, led Americans to value the honor of dying for one's country and led to increased enlistments.
Arlington Cemetery
✿ Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York - the cemetery's layout was the example for planned communities like Levittown, New York.
Plaque at Woodlawn Cemetery
✿ Chapel of the Chimes: Oakland, California - this large indoor cemetery has rows and stacks of 30,000+ urns filled with cremated remains, along with a few full-body tombs.
A columbarium at Chapel of the Chimes
✿ Hollywood Forever Cemetery: Los Angeles, California - to compete with other cemeteries and the metaverse, Hollywood Forever has gorgeous grounds, residents from Tinseltown, and activities such as concerts, movie screenings, author events, and cultural celebrations - the most popular being Día de los Muertos.
Día de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
✿ Forest Lawn Memorial-Park: Glendale, California - this beautiful cemetery, which houses many Hollywood celebrities, was founded by Hubert Eaton, who found ways to make a fortune from the non-profit burial ground.
✿ Central Park in Manhattan, New York - the most popular repository for human cremains.
An important issue mentioned by Melville is the fact that cemeteries are running out of space. One possible solution is cremation - in Japan, 99.8% of people are cremated. Another solution might be 'online cemeteries.' Melville notes that "the need for cemeteries as permanent reminders of our existence is becoming obsolete in the face of the Digital Immortality metaverse, where we can be memorialized with infinitely more data than what can be carved into a piece of granite."
Using cemeteries to chronicle important aspects of American history is clever and entertaining. I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.
You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com
February 19, 2023
Interesting bits of history. Enough to keep me engaged.
Taking a star off for its frequent misuse of the terms “graveyard” (which is a burial ground within a church yard- not a synonym for cemetery) and “internment” (which means imprisonment; I think the author means “interment”, which refers to burial). If you’re writing the book on cemeteries, these concepts are pretty key.
The occasional digs at his wife for not sharing his love of cemetery history were (I think) supposed to be funny, but to me they fell flat and came across as a little mean. They were distracting and messed with my immersion in the text.
Overall, still informative and worth the time to read, if you’re into these sorts of things.
Taking a star off for its frequent misuse of the terms “graveyard” (which is a burial ground within a church yard- not a synonym for cemetery) and “internment” (which means imprisonment; I think the author means “interment”, which refers to burial). If you’re writing the book on cemeteries, these concepts are pretty key.
The occasional digs at his wife for not sharing his love of cemetery history were (I think) supposed to be funny, but to me they fell flat and came across as a little mean. They were distracting and messed with my immersion in the text.
Overall, still informative and worth the time to read, if you’re into these sorts of things.
June 20, 2023
I wish this was a bit more history based and a little less opinion/family stories. Very interested in the history.
January 4, 2023
A lively microhistory that examines how cemeteries have shaped American life. One of the blurbs on the back honestly describes this book better than I can: “Melville writes with infectious enthusiasm, deep respect, and a healthy dose of wit.” I now feel way less weird about the walks I used to enjoy through a cemetery in middle school.
Thank you to the author for providing a copy!
Thank you to the author for providing a copy!
January 27, 2023
Okay so the next paragraph is just going to be me waxing philosophical about how much I love cemeteries, so you can skip it if you like:
I love cemeteries. My whole family loves them. Some of my favorite memories are stopping along the side of the road in the middle of nowhere to check out a cemetery from the Civil War, taking ghost tours in cemeteries in high school, and visiting cemeteries abroad in Paris and Oxford. One of my favorite places to jog in college was the historic graveyard near my apartment, and part of the reason I'm so happy with where I live now is that it butts up to the largest cemetery in my city.
This book covers the history of cemeteries in America, tying in art, architecture, American imperialism and colonialism, and cultural attitudes facing innovation and celebrity. It's extremely well-researched and populated with dad jokes, so this is basically For Me. Melville does a good job of not shying away from the darker details of the book, including criticizing military patriotism and the funeral industry. At the same time, his love for cemeteries is obvious, and that comes through in the passion with which he describes visiting them.
I would highly recommend this book as a follow-up to Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, which touches on some similar topics.
I love cemeteries. My whole family loves them. Some of my favorite memories are stopping along the side of the road in the middle of nowhere to check out a cemetery from the Civil War, taking ghost tours in cemeteries in high school, and visiting cemeteries abroad in Paris and Oxford. One of my favorite places to jog in college was the historic graveyard near my apartment, and part of the reason I'm so happy with where I live now is that it butts up to the largest cemetery in my city.
This book covers the history of cemeteries in America, tying in art, architecture, American imperialism and colonialism, and cultural attitudes facing innovation and celebrity. It's extremely well-researched and populated with dad jokes, so this is basically For Me. Melville does a good job of not shying away from the darker details of the book, including criticizing military patriotism and the funeral industry. At the same time, his love for cemeteries is obvious, and that comes through in the passion with which he describes visiting them.
I would highly recommend this book as a follow-up to Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, which touches on some similar topics.
October 15, 2022
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries by Greg Melville is an absolutely fascinating tour of the history of cemeteries in the U.S. Of the 18 cemeteries visited here, I've actually been to one of them in person, Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, so that was very cool to see the author discuss one I'm already somewhat familiar with. I particularly enjoyed the author's conversational tone. I highly recommend this, especially if you're a fan of Caitlin Doughty.
Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries by Greg Melville is an absolutely fascinating tour of the history of cemeteries in the U.S. Of the 18 cemeteries visited here, I've actually been to one of them in person, Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, so that was very cool to see the author discuss one I'm already somewhat familiar with. I particularly enjoyed the author's conversational tone. I highly recommend this, especially if you're a fan of Caitlin Doughty.
June 24, 2024
I wasn't sure how much the subject matter would interest me but Melville proved to be a good guide and companion throughout. I can't pin down a specific style and would generally say his enthusiasm felt genuine, there are lots of interesting facts and bits of history to learn, the writing is very approachable (not conversational but easy to read), there's good humor throughout (although a few too many puns for anyone's own good), and the serious moments are very appropriate and never felt too heavy or preachy. I think the book would have general appeal and deserves a wide audience. Also, book length is just about right, I never felt like I was reading an expanded magazine article.
Like any good book about something we're all generally familiar with, OMDB helped me actually see things I never particularly noticed before. In this case cemeteries. (I happen to park along a very large cemetery and immediately noticed the many mausoleums, decorative headstones and obelisks that dot the grounds.)
I read the kindle version which had many interesting pictures. I'd recommend a kindle or physical book for the photos. (I don't know if there's an audible version.)
Like any good book about something we're all generally familiar with, OMDB helped me actually see things I never particularly noticed before. In this case cemeteries. (I happen to park along a very large cemetery and immediately noticed the many mausoleums, decorative headstones and obelisks that dot the grounds.)
I read the kindle version which had many interesting pictures. I'd recommend a kindle or physical book for the photos. (I don't know if there's an audible version.)
March 11, 2023
This was an interesting read about burial culture. Much of the focus on was different styles of cemeteries and major cultural swaths of America — Black, and formerly enslaved, Chinese and Jewish — and their burial practices. While this was interesting, I was hoping for some of the more useful information for those of us who are fond of cemeteries when we go out exploring.
Ideally, iconography of headstones, traditions of rocks/coins on headstones, family plots, and styles of headstones. Examples: clasped hands, angels, lambs, flower/trees, styles of epitaphs etc.
While the author focuses mainly on east and west coast major cemeteries he did not discuss central portions of the country, where immigrant families brought burial practices, headstone styles and traditions to the United States — mixed with what was available in the area.
I was also disappointed that there wasn’t much discussion about learning about the community by evaluating the dates/ages of the graves. Was the town hit hard by Spanish Influenza, was there a tragic fire that swept through town?
Ideally, iconography of headstones, traditions of rocks/coins on headstones, family plots, and styles of headstones. Examples: clasped hands, angels, lambs, flower/trees, styles of epitaphs etc.
While the author focuses mainly on east and west coast major cemeteries he did not discuss central portions of the country, where immigrant families brought burial practices, headstone styles and traditions to the United States — mixed with what was available in the area.
I was also disappointed that there wasn’t much discussion about learning about the community by evaluating the dates/ages of the graves. Was the town hit hard by Spanish Influenza, was there a tragic fire that swept through town?
December 31, 2023
Very preachy.
July 13, 2023
Cemeteries fascinate me, I live close to Lake View cemetery in Cleveland and spend considerable time there walking and birding. It’s the final resting place of President James Garfield, Elliot Ness, John Rockefeller (who has one of those overcompensating obelisks) and Alan Freed, the DJ who spread the gospel of rock and roll. My Hudson Valley ancestors are buried in the Poughkeepsie Rural cemetery overlooking the river and Pere-Lachaise was my favorite place in all of Paris.
This book was enjoyable, in the hands of a more skillful and less egocentric author, it could have been brilliant. Jim Morrison is hardly overrated and I’m not here for music criticism. No one cares that a cemetery designer was also the president of the author’s alma mater, except the author. The sparring and snark with his wife became tiresome immediately and I walked away from the book feeling sorry for her.
The examination of the evolution of corpse disposal practices is worthwhile, as is the racism inherent in those practices, and the concomitant rise of the funeral industrial complex.
It’s worth reading, but could have been so much more.
This book was enjoyable, in the hands of a more skillful and less egocentric author, it could have been brilliant. Jim Morrison is hardly overrated and I’m not here for music criticism. No one cares that a cemetery designer was also the president of the author’s alma mater, except the author. The sparring and snark with his wife became tiresome immediately and I walked away from the book feeling sorry for her.
The examination of the evolution of corpse disposal practices is worthwhile, as is the racism inherent in those practices, and the concomitant rise of the funeral industrial complex.
It’s worth reading, but could have been so much more.
October 8, 2022
So good! Funny, respectful, deeply thoughtful, really insightful. This is a tough and weird topic to spend too much time thinking about and not really one you want to dwell on, but he makes it worth doing. I learned so much from this - it's one of those that's packed with interesting (and sometimes horrifying/shocking) trivia.
August 27, 2024
As a person who makes her loved ones visit cemeteries on vacations I appreciated this little gem. Greg and I could be besties.
November 18, 2024
If you are reading this review, please take it with a grain of salt. I read this very clearly pop-nonfiction book about death and cemeteries as someone who has been studying American deathways and thanatology for years. So… I knew a lot of the information, especially the analysis, in this book.
That said, there was not much analysis about how Americans understand death. It felt like taking a survey course (with a dad-joke professor trying to lighten the content) that jumped from one example cemetery to another. I was looking for a seminar class, I suppose.
I appreciate the way oppressive, racist, and xenophobic cemetery practices were highlighted throughout. I didn’t need the personal asides/dad jokes about his family thinking he’s crazy for being interested in death. I think this would be a good book if you were doing a cross-country road trip only highlighting cemeteries for sight seeing, or perhaps if you know absolutely nothing about American deathways and would like a quick overview (which I suppose would be most readers).
I’m surprised I finished this 🤷♀️
That said, there was not much analysis about how Americans understand death. It felt like taking a survey course (with a dad-joke professor trying to lighten the content) that jumped from one example cemetery to another. I was looking for a seminar class, I suppose.
I appreciate the way oppressive, racist, and xenophobic cemetery practices were highlighted throughout. I didn’t need the personal asides/dad jokes about his family thinking he’s crazy for being interested in death. I think this would be a good book if you were doing a cross-country road trip only highlighting cemeteries for sight seeing, or perhaps if you know absolutely nothing about American deathways and would like a quick overview (which I suppose would be most readers).
I’m surprised I finished this 🤷♀️
September 26, 2025
This was the start of my "spooky season" reads, and though it wasn't spooky in and of itself, you know... graveyards and cemeteries are generally considered to be spooky. (Just go with me on this please.)
I read this as a group read with the Nonfiction Book Club, and though I ended up liking it pretty well overall, as I was reading it, I had some issues with the author's choices. Mainly those were in regards to my feeling like he was hedging when he should have been naming exactly who was responsible for harmful and damaging policies that he was writing about. Since he didn't, I will. He wrote about the Bears Ears national park, and edged right around stating that it was 45th president Donald J. Trump who was responsible for reducing the size and protections of this park, and the native burial grounds there. Melville named Obama as the president who created the protections, then obliquely referred to "the next administration" damaging them, and then Biden as the one who reinstated them after he took office.
In 100 years, I'm sure Trump's presidential damage will be the subject of many a civics class, but it's unlikely to be connected with this random reference in this book about cemeteries. Why not just be consistent and name ALL of the presidents being referred to? Is it because one of them believes in retaliation and retribution for whoever criticizes him? Well, not to worry, Greg. I'm sure you know Trump doesn't know how to read anything not written in Sharpie... you're good.
Moving on. Another issue I had with this was a reference to Central Park in the intro, which referred to Central Park as being a "cemetery of sorts" as it was built without having removed remains that were there first. Which, I admit, raised my hackles a bit, as Central Park was built where it was after eminent domain took the land and evicted an entire ethnically diverse community (Black, Jewish, German, etc) called Seneca Village.
To his credit, he did address this much later in the book in the chapter on Central Park, but as it was seemingly glossed over in the intro, it really made me question a lot of the book until that point. How accurate is the history being portrayed here if he didn't even uncover THAT shameful history? That kind of thing. But he did, so I will give him a pass. But honestly, it would have been so easy to address this in the intro and allow the reader (at least THIS one) to have faith that you are presenting full and accurate info throughout the book.
Overall, I did end up enjoying this. I liked the variety and the notoriety of the cemeteries he selected to write about, and I did very much appreciate the way that he called out racism in the policies that surrounded them - particularly the cemeteries in Savannah, Georgia and at Monticello in Virginia (where Thomas Jefferson is buried in a nice little plot, segregated, of course, from anyone he enslaved - including Sally Hemings and the children he fathered with her).
So, in the end, I do recommend this, but impatient and critical readers may need to hold on to their critiques until the end. *cough* :P
I read this as a group read with the Nonfiction Book Club, and though I ended up liking it pretty well overall, as I was reading it, I had some issues with the author's choices. Mainly those were in regards to my feeling like he was hedging when he should have been naming exactly who was responsible for harmful and damaging policies that he was writing about. Since he didn't, I will. He wrote about the Bears Ears national park, and edged right around stating that it was 45th president Donald J. Trump who was responsible for reducing the size and protections of this park, and the native burial grounds there. Melville named Obama as the president who created the protections, then obliquely referred to "the next administration" damaging them, and then Biden as the one who reinstated them after he took office.
In 100 years, I'm sure Trump's presidential damage will be the subject of many a civics class, but it's unlikely to be connected with this random reference in this book about cemeteries. Why not just be consistent and name ALL of the presidents being referred to? Is it because one of them believes in retaliation and retribution for whoever criticizes him? Well, not to worry, Greg. I'm sure you know Trump doesn't know how to read anything not written in Sharpie... you're good.
Moving on. Another issue I had with this was a reference to Central Park in the intro, which referred to Central Park as being a "cemetery of sorts" as it was built without having removed remains that were there first. Which, I admit, raised my hackles a bit, as Central Park was built where it was after eminent domain took the land and evicted an entire ethnically diverse community (Black, Jewish, German, etc) called Seneca Village.
To his credit, he did address this much later in the book in the chapter on Central Park, but as it was seemingly glossed over in the intro, it really made me question a lot of the book until that point. How accurate is the history being portrayed here if he didn't even uncover THAT shameful history? That kind of thing. But he did, so I will give him a pass. But honestly, it would have been so easy to address this in the intro and allow the reader (at least THIS one) to have faith that you are presenting full and accurate info throughout the book.
Overall, I did end up enjoying this. I liked the variety and the notoriety of the cemeteries he selected to write about, and I did very much appreciate the way that he called out racism in the policies that surrounded them - particularly the cemeteries in Savannah, Georgia and at Monticello in Virginia (where Thomas Jefferson is buried in a nice little plot, segregated, of course, from anyone he enslaved - including Sally Hemings and the children he fathered with her).
So, in the end, I do recommend this, but impatient and critical readers may need to hold on to their critiques until the end. *cough* :P
January 23, 2023
Ahhh vacation reads... rather untraditional just like me to geek out over yet another unique history. I couldn't help but keep sharing tidbits with my husband "...did you know this...", "...oh listen to this..." towards the end I'm sure he was feeling the same way the authors wife, Ann Marie, was rolling her eyes over the author's endless fascination with cemeteries/memorial lands.
The sheer statistics are just mindboggling but learning about the transition of traditions, landmarks, medical changes, and how they affected everything from death rooms becoming living rooms, to the massive draw to lands bringing together more people than theme parks-- all of it absolutely engrossing. I found myself extremely humbled, enlightened, and thoughtful as such decisions will also have to be laid out for my own self.
The sheer statistics are just mindboggling but learning about the transition of traditions, landmarks, medical changes, and how they affected everything from death rooms becoming living rooms, to the massive draw to lands bringing together more people than theme parks-- all of it absolutely engrossing. I found myself extremely humbled, enlightened, and thoughtful as such decisions will also have to be laid out for my own self.
December 1, 2024
Funny and well written book on American graveyards. A niche topic, brought in an interesting way. The author uses some "dad jokes", but has a serious tone when necessary. Also love the photography. Great pick by the Morbidly Curious Book Club!
November 21, 2025
This rambling tour through American cemeteries might seem at first glance to be a rather unique kind of travelogue, but its real approach is to treat them as mirrors of national history and culture. It works pretty well as such a microhistory, using this deceptively narrow lens to explore everything from social trends to architectural design and even urban planning.
Which isn’t to say that it feels academic. Melville’s tone does stick more to that of a travelogue, for the most part—complete with random asides, reactions from family & friends, etc. I suppose there’s some charm there, that might be attractive to folks who don’t prefer the density of nonfiction. I mostly found such instances distracting. They don’t derail the book, but they do wear thin by the end.
What I was much more interested in (and impressed with) were the connections Melville draws between burial grounds and larger cultural shifts—how cemeteries reflect attitudes toward race, religion, and class, and even how they influenced artistic movements (especially in architecture & urban design, as I mentioned above). Some of his claims felt a bit overstated, but they were interesting enough to keep me thinking critically.
I wouldn’t say I found it vastly informative or eye-opening, but it was engaging.
Which isn’t to say that it feels academic. Melville’s tone does stick more to that of a travelogue, for the most part—complete with random asides, reactions from family & friends, etc. I suppose there’s some charm there, that might be attractive to folks who don’t prefer the density of nonfiction. I mostly found such instances distracting. They don’t derail the book, but they do wear thin by the end.
What I was much more interested in (and impressed with) were the connections Melville draws between burial grounds and larger cultural shifts—how cemeteries reflect attitudes toward race, religion, and class, and even how they influenced artistic movements (especially in architecture & urban design, as I mentioned above). Some of his claims felt a bit overstated, but they were interesting enough to keep me thinking critically.
I wouldn’t say I found it vastly informative or eye-opening, but it was engaging.
September 26, 2024
Ok, granted I love a history of a random thing AND I often walk through cemeteries on vacation. So I am essentially the exact target audience for this book.
But I LOVED it. It's sort of embarrassing how many of the discussed cemeteries I've already been to... but oh well. I loved hearing Melville describing trendy cemeteries, changing mores around funereal practices, racism, classism, and all the other things that go into deciding where/how humans want their bodies to be buried (or not, as the case may be).
But I LOVED it. It's sort of embarrassing how many of the discussed cemeteries I've already been to... but oh well. I loved hearing Melville describing trendy cemeteries, changing mores around funereal practices, racism, classism, and all the other things that go into deciding where/how humans want their bodies to be buried (or not, as the case may be).
October 28, 2024
Oh, I really liked this one!! I loved hearing about the different ways we bury/cremate our loved ones and who drew from which cultures. Some I knew, most I didn't. As a fan of classic Hollywood and someone who has spent major time there, I especially loved the chapters on Forest Lawn and Hollywood Forever. Not just the talk of the stars, but where the architecture came from and how they got to the level of famous they are.
Really made me question what I want for my own death but I guess I'll cross that bridge when it comes? Anywho, fantastic read.
Really made me question what I want for my own death but I guess I'll cross that bridge when it comes? Anywho, fantastic read.
April 12, 2023
Some of my favorite vacation experiences have included trips to and tours of notable cemeteries. This includes Gettysburg, PA; St. Louis, MO; New Orleans, LA; Arlington, VA; and Salem, MA, as well as internationally in the UK. Cemeteries and those laid to rest in them are the owners of history, and the author, Greg Melville, does such an excellent job taking the reader on a tour of cemeteries located in the US, and in some cases, other countries, and melding into the narrative a rich discussion of how the cemetery tells a meaningful story through its occupants, architecture, location, governance, etc.
I found the contents of this book fascinating, informative, and ultimately a travel guide bucket list for the future. Included in each chapter are photos taken of or in the graveyard featured in the associated chapter. After reading this book, I feel like I have a leg up on being able to prepare myself with cemetery-specific information if I get a chance in the future to visit one or more of those included.
The book is a generalized walk through the history of burial practices that serves to entertain and inform and never becomes tedious. A little something is learned within each chapter as to how society impacts or is impacted by changing attitudes toward disposition of the human body. Such as:
The Civil War opened the gates to the capitalism of corpses — and death in America has never been the same.
Or
The way cemeteries set the mold for America’s suburban subdivisions.
Mr. Melville shares personal stories of how his family is not quite as keen on cemetery visits as he is and how they make travels and school field trips work for all of them. I enjoyed the author's brand of low-key humor sprinkled throughout the book... every now and then even laughing out loud or at least being able to relate to his anecdotes. I found the content of this book captivating and highly recommend for fans of history and/or cemeteries.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Will Tulin, truly did the book's content justice and it felt like he captured the author's personality well in relating personal recollections found in the book.
I found the contents of this book fascinating, informative, and ultimately a travel guide bucket list for the future. Included in each chapter are photos taken of or in the graveyard featured in the associated chapter. After reading this book, I feel like I have a leg up on being able to prepare myself with cemetery-specific information if I get a chance in the future to visit one or more of those included.
The book is a generalized walk through the history of burial practices that serves to entertain and inform and never becomes tedious. A little something is learned within each chapter as to how society impacts or is impacted by changing attitudes toward disposition of the human body. Such as:
The Civil War opened the gates to the capitalism of corpses — and death in America has never been the same.
Or
The way cemeteries set the mold for America’s suburban subdivisions.
Mr. Melville shares personal stories of how his family is not quite as keen on cemetery visits as he is and how they make travels and school field trips work for all of them. I enjoyed the author's brand of low-key humor sprinkled throughout the book... every now and then even laughing out loud or at least being able to relate to his anecdotes. I found the content of this book captivating and highly recommend for fans of history and/or cemeteries.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Will Tulin, truly did the book's content justice and it felt like he captured the author's personality well in relating personal recollections found in the book.
February 9, 2025
AUDIOBOOK
I have been fascinated by cemeteries and graveyards for years and I'll be purchasing this recent book on the history of cemeteries for my current collection on the funerary arts.
There was a lot of new information contained in this book and I loved that he focused on various types of cemeteries, from one of our earliest "garden" cemeteries, Mt. Auburn in Boston, to Boot Hill (and any western cemetery is referred to as a 'Boot Hill', to those glittering tourist attractions like Forest Lawn and Hollywood Forever, both of which I'm familiar with from the endless YouTube videos I watch on cemeteries.
The most surprising bit of insight I gleaned from the author's own obsession with cemeteries was just how much they have been overlooked in our nation's history, not only because of those buried on the grounds, but even in the inspiration for the suburban look of our yards, or the layout of Disneyland (I'm not kidding about this).
I look forward to having the hardcover on my shelves as I begin my own research into creating a cemetery walk in our local cemetery for October (something I've wanted to do for a while now).
I have been fascinated by cemeteries and graveyards for years and I'll be purchasing this recent book on the history of cemeteries for my current collection on the funerary arts.
There was a lot of new information contained in this book and I loved that he focused on various types of cemeteries, from one of our earliest "garden" cemeteries, Mt. Auburn in Boston, to Boot Hill (and any western cemetery is referred to as a 'Boot Hill', to those glittering tourist attractions like Forest Lawn and Hollywood Forever, both of which I'm familiar with from the endless YouTube videos I watch on cemeteries.
The most surprising bit of insight I gleaned from the author's own obsession with cemeteries was just how much they have been overlooked in our nation's history, not only because of those buried on the grounds, but even in the inspiration for the suburban look of our yards, or the layout of Disneyland (I'm not kidding about this).
I look forward to having the hardcover on my shelves as I begin my own research into creating a cemetery walk in our local cemetery for October (something I've wanted to do for a while now).
January 30, 2025
Cool content, meh on the delivery.
Super interesting takes and background on a lot of the old cemeteries in the U.S. I like that it was deeper than just the histories of these cemeteries and instead dove into how politics, racism, and capitalism have such a chokehold on death and the afterlife. But it IS the United States after all so that tracks..
But.. during some anecdotes, the author would toss out random jabs about his wife and family that were meant to be silly, but that always kind of threw me off. Idk, I guess the type of, spouses-are-so-annoying-am-I-right?, style of boomer-humor is just so cringe to me.
Also gave off, I’m super wEiRd and cRaZy because I’m interested in death, vibes. When that’s actually a super normal thing to be interested in. It’s giving edge-lord.
Super interesting takes and background on a lot of the old cemeteries in the U.S. I like that it was deeper than just the histories of these cemeteries and instead dove into how politics, racism, and capitalism have such a chokehold on death and the afterlife. But it IS the United States after all so that tracks..
But.. during some anecdotes, the author would toss out random jabs about his wife and family that were meant to be silly, but that always kind of threw me off. Idk, I guess the type of, spouses-are-so-annoying-am-I-right?, style of boomer-humor is just so cringe to me.
Also gave off, I’m super wEiRd and cRaZy because I’m interested in death, vibes. When that’s actually a super normal thing to be interested in. It’s giving edge-lord.
March 9, 2023
"Our cemeteries reveal where our values lie and how we lie about our values.”
August 16, 2024
The Morbidly Curious Book Club August 2024 Selection
April 22, 2022
Author Greg Melville writes of ancient burial sites around the world and then focuses on America. Beginning with his summer job mowing lawns at a cemetery as a young man in Massachusetts, he discusses how cemeteries became our first public art museums and parks. Also, how they offer evidence of the removal of Indigenous people, of slavery, of segregation of Jews and Blacks, and how cemeteries bred greed and corruption into a multi-billion-dollar industry that is not entirely about easing grief. Most of the graveyards he writes about are on the eastern coast and California. For example, the burial markers at Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts date back from the late 1600s to the 1950s with skulls and grim reapers that turn to angels and elaborate more cheerful designs as views within religions changed. He discusses a Colonial Jewish Burial Ground in Rhode Island that was established in 1677 that has inscriptions in English, Spanish and Portuguese and an almost extinct Judeo-Spanish language known as Ladino. His chapter on Monticello discusses the finding of an African American Graveyard in 2001 that contains about 40 enslaved people that had disappeared from history. The Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts is a turning point in that cemeteries were being made outside of the cities as space ran out and landscaped architecture became more of the norm. They featured pathways for walking in the woods and gardens and places for a family to sit and nowadays to jog. The civil war saw another change with the making of national military cemeteries for fallen soldiers, such as at Gettysburg consecrated with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the making of Arlington. He then discusses several more cemeteries with fascinating detail. At the end he gives information that actually made me a little sad, mad, and more aware. One company produces 45% of all caskets in America, hard during a pandemic, and brings in 2.5 billion in annual revenue. Unfortunately, burials can include toxic embalming fluid, which includes gallons of formaldehyde, tons of metal and concrete and cremation, has toxins as well. I found myself pondering my own funeral and how green I can be and not wipe out my life savings and still pay for elder care expenses. However, when I am traveling and there is a burial ground or cemetery near the motel or even a restaurant, I and my passengers will stretch our legs in a walk through it and also ponder. I look at the art or non-art on the markers or urns and feel sadness when one whole family seems to have died in a brief period of time and remind myself that saying farewell is an ancient act even done by animals and should be honored. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
January 23, 2023
The title pretty much says it all. He gives the history of not just the cemeteries, but of the area in general, as well as who designed the graveyard and the people who are buried there. Each chapter of the book is about a different American cemetery, starting with colonial Jamestown and ending with Hollywood Forever, and then devoting chapters to cremation, green cemeteries, and the way that a person can stay “alive” indefinitely via computer files and the internet.
One thing that comes up repeatedly is how the American Way of Death (as Jessica Mitford named it a few decades ago) is a money making machine. The plot purchase, the coffin, the embalming, the services, the maintenance of the gravesite… it all adds up tremendously. And they don’t tell you that most of it isn’t necessary. You don’t need a mahogany and brass coffin that’s better made than many people’s furniture. You don’t need a concrete vault in most cases. Embalming isn’t required in most jurisdictions, unless the body is being held for over a certain amount of time. But it’s easy to lay a guilt trip on a grieving family- “It shows your respect for your father!” “Don’t you love your mother enough to buy the very best?”- and upsell them.
Another item that comes up several times is the utter disrespect for existing graves when the well to do or those in power (usually the same thing…) wanted to use the land for something else. The early white colonists rode roughshod over Native American graveyards, whether it was for building, their own graveyards, or for agriculture. The poor had their graveyards built over in more than one place. A graveyard for African-Americans in New York had Central Park built over it- the grave markers were moved, but the bodies weren’t.
The book is well written, presented as a travelogue; anywhere the author travels, he tries to call in at any graveyards in the area, especially well known ones. His family finds this rather tiresome, given that they don’t share his enthusiasm for cemeteries (Hollywood Forever was found more acceptable than most, but just barely). Anyone who likes to walk through graveyards will enjoy this book.
One thing that comes up repeatedly is how the American Way of Death (as Jessica Mitford named it a few decades ago) is a money making machine. The plot purchase, the coffin, the embalming, the services, the maintenance of the gravesite… it all adds up tremendously. And they don’t tell you that most of it isn’t necessary. You don’t need a mahogany and brass coffin that’s better made than many people’s furniture. You don’t need a concrete vault in most cases. Embalming isn’t required in most jurisdictions, unless the body is being held for over a certain amount of time. But it’s easy to lay a guilt trip on a grieving family- “It shows your respect for your father!” “Don’t you love your mother enough to buy the very best?”- and upsell them.
Another item that comes up several times is the utter disrespect for existing graves when the well to do or those in power (usually the same thing…) wanted to use the land for something else. The early white colonists rode roughshod over Native American graveyards, whether it was for building, their own graveyards, or for agriculture. The poor had their graveyards built over in more than one place. A graveyard for African-Americans in New York had Central Park built over it- the grave markers were moved, but the bodies weren’t.
The book is well written, presented as a travelogue; anywhere the author travels, he tries to call in at any graveyards in the area, especially well known ones. His family finds this rather tiresome, given that they don’t share his enthusiasm for cemeteries (Hollywood Forever was found more acceptable than most, but just barely). Anyone who likes to walk through graveyards will enjoy this book.
October 7, 2022
Melville is very funny in a dad-jokes-and-puns way that I really appreciated. That said, this book doesn't shy away from pointing out the appalling past that cemeteries have in the US, from the way they were originally segregated to what is still happening now, where the parts of the cemeteries where the remains of non-whites reside are unkempt and ignored, and the blatant disregard for indigenous burial grounds.
Melville shines a light on the origin of the modern cemetery, the vast expanses of grass we're so used to, and how they became the inspiration for theme parks and suburbs, the obsession with celebrities as an attraction and a way to bring business to a cemetery, and the ever so imaginative ways people trying to sell you coffins will talk you into getting expensive additions when you're too overwhelmed and stricken with grief to argue. Also explored is the glorification of dying for your country that is inculcated into the minds of people joining the military and the reality of Arlington National Cemetery.
My favourite part of the book was the discussion surrounding digital memorials as an alternative to a physical grave. The way I see it, watching a video of someone from when they were alive, reading their Facebook posts, or looking at their photos on a computer screen, does not satisfy the same need that going to a quiet, isolated place, where their body is, does. Sitting by someone's grave and having a little conversation is not the same thing as visiting their social media profiles. It doesn't even have to be a grave. Their remains don't even have to be there! Going someplace on purpose, someplace outside, and sitting there for a little bit and thinking about them without targeted ads flashing in your face, is a different activity.
Cemeteries are fascinating pieces of history and today is a great day to go take a walk in one.
Melville shines a light on the origin of the modern cemetery, the vast expanses of grass we're so used to, and how they became the inspiration for theme parks and suburbs, the obsession with celebrities as an attraction and a way to bring business to a cemetery, and the ever so imaginative ways people trying to sell you coffins will talk you into getting expensive additions when you're too overwhelmed and stricken with grief to argue. Also explored is the glorification of dying for your country that is inculcated into the minds of people joining the military and the reality of Arlington National Cemetery.
My favourite part of the book was the discussion surrounding digital memorials as an alternative to a physical grave. The way I see it, watching a video of someone from when they were alive, reading their Facebook posts, or looking at their photos on a computer screen, does not satisfy the same need that going to a quiet, isolated place, where their body is, does. Sitting by someone's grave and having a little conversation is not the same thing as visiting their social media profiles. It doesn't even have to be a grave. Their remains don't even have to be there! Going someplace on purpose, someplace outside, and sitting there for a little bit and thinking about them without targeted ads flashing in your face, is a different activity.
Cemeteries are fascinating pieces of history and today is a great day to go take a walk in one.
September 24, 2025
Like the author, I find cemeteries fascinating and so this book was an excellent find for me. Melville selects a number of American cemeteries established through the centuries from the time of the early settlers up to modern sustainable burial grounds, and examines what each of them has to tell us about American history and culture.
Some of the topics are as expected - Arlington Cemetery for example showing us how attitudes to those dying in battle have changed through time, and how this is reflected in the cemetery environment and the rituals of burial. Others are more quirky and surprising- the chapter on Boot Hill, Arizona only fleetingly mentions the gunslingers of the Old West and focuses our attention instead on the Chinese immigrants who built so much of the infrastructure of the new settlements. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the Chapel of the Chimes and its examination of the rise in cremations - this also taught me the term ‘columbarium’ for the place where ashes are interred.
This book offered a great way to learn more about American cultural history in an engaging way. Every chapter was interesting and taught me something new, and this knowledge will influence my own reflections next time I wander into a cemetery here in the UK.
Some of the topics are as expected - Arlington Cemetery for example showing us how attitudes to those dying in battle have changed through time, and how this is reflected in the cemetery environment and the rituals of burial. Others are more quirky and surprising- the chapter on Boot Hill, Arizona only fleetingly mentions the gunslingers of the Old West and focuses our attention instead on the Chinese immigrants who built so much of the infrastructure of the new settlements. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the Chapel of the Chimes and its examination of the rise in cremations - this also taught me the term ‘columbarium’ for the place where ashes are interred.
This book offered a great way to learn more about American cultural history in an engaging way. Every chapter was interesting and taught me something new, and this knowledge will influence my own reflections next time I wander into a cemetery here in the UK.
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