Good Mourning

Starred review from May 25, 2015
If Carrie Bradshaw worked in a funeral home à la Six Feet Under, her story would look something like Meyer’s charming memoir about her tenure planning funerals at Crawford, an elite funeral parlor in Manhattan where the Upper East Side socialites she grew up around plan their ultimate farewell parties. After her father’s death, she begins searching for meaning in her own life, and the path leads her, surprisingly, to a calling to work with the dead. At Crawford, she faces challenges as a child of privilege trying to fit in with the working-class staff: receptionists snub her and whisper about her behind her back. But she finds respite downstairs with the embalmer, Bill, and her kind if brusque boss, Tony, who soon offers her a promotion and an office of her own after she proves to be indispensable to Crawford’s rich and famous clientele. Soon Meyer discovers her deep capacity for empathy and her desire to help people in their most difficult moments, along with the calling of making each funeral as amazing as any bash in the Hamptons. Meyer injects a healthy dose of humor into what could otherwise be a morbid topic. From saving the day when an important ambassador’s body is lost in transit, to gracefully handling intense office drama when she is accused of having an affair with Tony, Meyer takes the high road and concentrates on what becomes a spiritual journey of healing and self-discovery: “I needed to know death. I needed to understand it. I needed to stop fearing it, and my way of doing that was to help other people who were grieving.” It’s a story well suited to the big screen.

June 1, 2015
The untimely death of Meyer's beloved father got her thinking. Shortly thereafter, though she didn't need the money, she took a job as a secretary at Crawford, New York City's funeral home to the stars, discovering that she had a gift for planning last hurrahs for the richest of the rich (and sometimes the craziest of the crazy). Despite her friends' dismay, her mother's and brother's concern, and her socialite grandmother's unveiled disgust, Meyer finessed her job from answering the phone to helping outparty planning, in a wayfor dead rock stars, politicians, the wealthy and elite, and more; as she points out, We're all going to die. For a book about death and its attendant services, this is actually a sweet, touching, and funny read. Meyer is truly likable, a great storyteller (with coauthor Moscatello), and loves what she does. While her twentysomething friends are jetting to parties in London or tossing down thousands for bar bills, Meyer is comforting the bereaved and throwing their loved ones memorials they would have truly enjoyed. A lighthearted, moving glimpse into the almost beyond.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)