Customer Reviews

The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds

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"Where do you bury?" This question at the end of the first chapter of Marilyn Yalom's The American Resting Place epitomizes this readable, thought-provoking narrative. It is one of hundreds of tidbits of observation, research, and lore that together make this book a bracing feast of cultural history, and more. Yalom's deep compassion for the human condition is leavened with spritely curiosity, sharp intelligence, and understated humor. And that's just the text. The American Resting Place offers readers an extraordinary visual and tactile bonus in the beautiful photographs by Reid Yalom. These black-and-white prints, reproduced in high-quality, glossy plates, at once illustrate the text and stand alone as chiaroscuro masterworks of past and present, life and death, irony and hope.

Like the best cultural historians, Yalom finds the universe in a grain of sand - from the ancient mounds of Native Americans to Ground Zero. In between, we are taken on a strange yet satisfyingly concatenated journey that spans four centuries of American history, one grounded, necessarily, in geography. We hopscotch with the Conquistadores from Florida to New Mexico. Through the burial customs employed - tombstones or not, permanent graves or lost bodies - we experience great waves of history, famine and plenty, natural disasters, catastrophic epidemics, the dominions and disappearances of different religions. In one burial ground in Charleston, Yalom describes stones marking the graves of Jews of a strict Orthodox Sephardic tradition that, strange to think, included veterans of the Revolutionary, 1812, and Civil Wars. Strong as is that Jewish tradition, it is muddled by secular and Christian funerary motifs. Similarly, Christian and African iconography decorates graves in rural Georgia.

Yalom's background as an art historian turns seeming miscellany into keys to whole, buried cultures. More often than not, cultural contrasts erupt around the ways we treat our dead. Yalom highlights this irony with poignancy - the dead of different faiths, races, and eras are all at rest. It is the ways the restless living strive to ameliorate pain and passage into the unknown that make the American cemetery a fascinating historical record, and in the hands of a writer like Yalom, a delightful read.

There are several reviews here about the Yaloms' (mother and son) book on American cemeteries. Since the reviews focus principally on the text, I wanted to take a moment to discuss the moving black and white photographs by Reid Yalom, a photographer from San Francisco.

First of all, it was a wise decision to place the photographs in a distinct portfolio in the front of the book. In this way, they avoid becoming only dispersed illustrations for Marilyn's well-written text. The photographs are historical documents, of course, but they are so much more. Each image stands regally on its own, framed by a skillful and sensitive fine art photographer.

Take a moment to meander through the portfolio of images-- letting go of the details about where and when, much as you would stroll through these cemeteries themselves on a quiet Sunday afternoon. After all, the cemetery AND the photograph are places to meander, to explore, to meditate and to REST. Resting your eyes and thoughts on one of Reid's poetic images gives the viewer an opportunity to reflect.

There is as much life in these images of graves and cold stones as there is death. Reid has managed to inject a feeling for a live human presence to spite the fact that there is only one image with a live human figure, Plate 46. In perusing these photographs, we feel a warm human spirit circling around, not some eerie ghost of the past, but a strong immediate presence of those who are our loved ones. Through Reid's choice of sparkling light on stone (Plate 42 for example), through the artful presentation of photographs and drawings of those buried on the graves (Plate 44 as example), and through the dramatic images of statuary (the last Plate 64 especially), we feel the strong continuation of the souls who are resting here. In this final photograph of statuary, Kate Tracy and her mother, their arms wrapped around each other are offering comfort to those of us alive who are walking there and facing the inevitability of our own mortality.

Plate 52, Spirit trail, is my favorite image. At first it seems so lonely but then, as I rest my eye on the path, I feel a presence--surprisingly, that of myself walking the stony road accompanied by my own spirit into the rest of my life.

Wander through these photographs. You will not regret it. They are thoughtfully composed with an eye for the way nature, stone, and human spirit can combine--especially when brought together by an artist like Reid Yalom.

I was first drawn to this book by the cover: peaceful photograph and arresting title. Then came the photographs, both haunting and beautiful. Then the big surprise was how quickly I became engaged in the way religion, culture and the cemetery intertwine. Using the American resting place as the constant, Marilyn manages to teach so much about where we all came from and the changes that bring us to the present moment. Cemeteries may seem boring (not at night), but this book brings them alive in a way that is fascinating and educational. The American Resting Place is not just for the academic or intellectual. Everyone will come away better off for having read it. Don't miss this book!

A great read! "The American Resting Place" is an extraordinary book. Written by Marilyn Yalom, who is best known for her scholarly works on women, and photographed by her son Reid, this book presents American cemeteries over a period of 400 years so as to recreate our cultural history, both textually and visually. Despite its vast scope, the book reads smoothly and managed to hold my attention from beginning to end . I especially liked the chapter on Chicago's cemeteries, with their great religious and ethnic diversity, and the one on New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The photos are outstanding. No wonder that Newsweek magazine (which called my attention to this book) said "The American Resting Place" was a fascinating way of illuminating our history. Kudos to Dr Yalom and her son Reid, an outstanding photographer.

Non-genealogists are apt not to understand why some of us come back from a vacation, and practically the only pictures in the camera are of tombs and grave markers. Cemeteries are fascinating places to those who research the history of their families. But they're also an intimate ingredient in American cultural history. As families of varying ethnic origins migrated west (or north), they took their burial traditions with them, which means there's not much that a colonial burying ground in Connecticut, a Hispanic cemetery in San Antonio, and a rural church graveyard in Missouri have in common -- at least on the surface. Yalom, though, a noted cultural historian, finds the commonalities in this coast-to-coast tour. The author's method is anecdotal, with chapters on Boston's ancient burial places, New York city's struggles to find room for all its dead, the "Southern way of death," Texas, St. Louis, Chicago, California, and Hawaii, with additional chapters on military cemeteries and changing fashions in interment. Of special interest to me, there's an entire chapter on New Orleans, too, "where it's better to be buried above ground." Yalom includes detailed coverage of Katrina's depredations on the city's cemeteries, since the hurricane arrived during the very week she had planned to visit. Rather than a unified plan of development, the reader will experience instead a gradually cumulative effect, an overlayering of cultures and religious sensibilities which highlights how much history America's cemeteries really contain. A few famous graves are mentioned -- King Kamehameha, Elder William Brewster, Dred Scott -- but far more space is given to ordinary people who typify a larger group, and to gravesites where not even the names of the inhabitants are known. This makes it an excellent book for browsing, and there is also a section of eighty striking black-and-white photos which you will find yourself turning back to over and over again.

The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds. by Marilyn Yalom and Reid S. Yalom. 2008. 352 pages.

My wife found this book at a local library while browsing the shelves. I picked it up off of her "to read" book pile. I had just recently re-watched a one hour program on PBS about Cemeteries and so my interest had been piqued.

This book begins with an extensive set of black and white photographs of various burying grounds and objects with in them. The photography is well done and the black and white format with its shades of gray and shadows was a much better stylistic choice then color.

Then begins the text. The text is well written, well researched, and moves along at a good reading pace conveying main ideas and themes intermingled with tidbits and interesting facts related to local burials and traditions. The book takes a journey chronological, and geographically. In a sense it follows the spread of American Civilization across the mountains, the prairies, and over the oceans to Hawaii.

The text does a good job of laying out a basic framework of traditions with localized religious, cultural, and geographical considerations played out on that general framing. The only real drawback to this approach is that occasionally the author will interject more than a personal reaction. The author will on occasion interject a personal observation or commentary. These commentaries however do not really affect the readability, tone, or scope of the text. They are a paragraph every third chapter or so at most. If anything they prick one's own conscience and stimulate personal reflection.

The research which went into creating the background frame is admirable and included in the bibliography. Much of the local flavorings are enhanced by the author's travels to these sites and interviews with local personalities.

The book is a very good basic reference guide to the breadth of American funerary and burial traditions. It does not purport to be the subject matter expert on say the burial mounds and grave goods of the Blackducks or Dutch Colonial settlers outside of New York. Rather it provides an informed readable survey with enough depth to halt the readers and spark interest in further investigation. The book is not a theology text but more of a travelogue.

My only real complaint is that the photos were separated from the text by putting them all together in the beginning. I feel that they would have benefited the text and the educational capabilities of the book by ending the need to flip and search. Of course that would have eliminated the artistic focus of the photos and perhaps changed their personality.

Marilyn Yalom wrote an elegant, highly informative book that offers a unique view into the history of our country through burial fields with end of life customs. Her vibrant prose makes the gravestones come to life and leave behind their long-hidden messages. The text reads easily and Reid Yalom's photographs are extraordinary - each projects its own unique artistic view of some aspect of the way we bury the dead. Although the topic is about the dead, the book is vibrant and very much alive. I have rarely learned so much fascinating material from a book that is such a good read.

If you like to walk cemetaries on your historical travels, great book to take along. It provides unusual and interesting insights not available as you prepare to explore a region.

Cemeteries are a rich part of our history. Marilyn Yalom makes our history come alive in her overview of American cemeteries and the individual stories revealed by a penetrating look at graves and tombstones. There is a wealth of knowledge here about a subject seldom approached on this grand scale. It is interesting to see how different religions and cultures deal with the end of life. In addition, the stunning photos are visual treasures. They are, in and of themselves, instructive and moving.

Creepy to say, but I have always loved cemeteries. They demand a certain soft-spoken respect and carefull treading about, lest one step on a stone. I must have an undertaker or gravedigger in the bloodline. But I found that "The American Resting Place" took all the ghoulish fun out of death.

I started at the end, at the chapter devoted to bodily disposal practices in the future. The chapter covered green burials, the increasing number of cremations and the focus on making funerals more individual. But while this tack could have led to all sorts of fascinating harbors, it did not. One thread, showing how some Catholic parishes are discouraging lay eulogies, might have kick off a few sparks. But this thread was laid, ever so gently, to rest with the others.

Perhaps it was the disinterested tone of the book that I found off-putting. America's founders had an all-encompassing terror of death and damnation -- those weird tombstone death's heads were intended to frighten the living into a life of rectitude. But Yalom takes a rather distanced view of the whole phenomenon of theology, leeching all the life out of the study of death. If it doesn't matter what happens to our souls after we die, why fuss so much with the remains?

I plowed my way dutifully through the first third of the book and came to a dead stop. Lord knows if my interest will ever be resurrected. For now, "The American Resting Place" itself rests in peace, buried in the pile of books by my bed.