I don’t like keeping things from you, deathlings. But, for obvious reasons, I have been very mum’s-the-word on the following project.
From Publishers Weekly:
Prevailing in an eight-way auction, Tom Mayer at Norton bought world rights to mortician Caitlin Doughty’s memoir, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (and Other Lessons from the Crematory). The book, which has drawn buzz around town, was sold by Anna Sproul-Latimer at the Ross Yoon Agency. Norton said it offers “an eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious” account of Doughty’s initial year working in the funeral business. On a more serious note, the publisher added, the book delivers a cri de coeur “for better practices in the way we deal with death.”
That’s right guys, I am writing a little something called a BOOK (perhaps you’ve heard of it, hyperventilation ensues). I’m thrilled to be at W.W. Norton & Company, which publishes two of my absolute heroes, biologist Edward O. Wilson and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Norton is also home to both Mary Roach’s Stiff and Thomas Lynch’s The Undertaking. If you are in the funeral industry (or just a death enthusiast in general) you will know that they are the heavy hitter titles in the mortality genre.
I’ve wanted to write a book for about four years now. It’s been stewing in my brain in various forms, tormenting me in the night in a relentless Edgar Allen Poe-type fashion. Now I finally have the opportunity to do it.
I promise you a book that is both serious and funny (or at least one that tries to be). From the very beginning of this process it was made very clear that this wasn’t a book of OMG super wacky mortuary stories, nor was it a cash-in on Ask a Mortician. Making a book out of Sh#t Girls Say or kittensinhats.tumblr is not a bad thing, but it’s not my thing. I’m going to give this the best of what’s in me, and I hope you’ll come along for the journey.
Thank you, deathlings, for helping to make this possible. My heart grows three sizes this day.
