Welcome to a new edition of the Chapter x Chapter series, a column where I take a deep dive into horror reading with a new review for each chapter of the book. As we embark on our next literary adventure, I'll be looking to change up the format a bit. Frankly, I think doing a full, separate post for each chapter was a bit much for me and I'm thinking it may have been a bit much for you all. So for everyone's sanity and to make sure I can do more than one book a year, rather than doing a separate post for each chapter, I'll be updating this post with a new chapter as I progress through the book.
This time around, the book in question isn't strictly an analysis on horror, but it does focus on a topic that permeates pretty much any horror film: death. Caitlin Doughty, mortician and founder of The Order of the Good Death, isn't a stranger to investigating our attitudes about our inevitable demise. In her first book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Doughty recounted her time working in a crematorium. In From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, Doughty travels the world to see how various cultures care for their dead as a contrast to those here in the U.S., which she asserts is primarily used as a means to avoid confronting death.
