Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains graphic descriptions of dead bodies; the cremation, embalming, and decomposition processes; deaths, including violent deaths, of babies, children, and adults; and suicide.

In Caitlin Doughty’s Author’s Note, she describes the execution of Mata Hari during World War I. Hari, a dancer who spied for Germany, refused to wear a blindfold, preferring to look the firing squad in the eyes. To be able to come to terms with death, Doughty believes that “looking mortality straight in the eye” (6) is crucial. She introduces the book as a memoir of her first six years working in the American funeral industry.

On her first day working at Westwind Cremation & Burial, Doughty must shave the body of a man named Byron. She is only 23 and unsure how exactly to shave the face of a corpse. Doughty got the job at Westwind after six months of applying to different funeral homes in San Francisco. She has been morbidly fascinated by death from a young age, and she majored in medieval history in university. 

After Doughty finishes shaving Byron, his family comes to the mortuary for a last viewing, and then her new boss, Mike, takes Byron to be cremated.