Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween [Hardcover]

David J. Skal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2002

From acclaimed cultural critic David J. Skal, an in-depth look at one of the most popular-and perplexing-holidays in America.

Using a mix of personal anecdotes and brilliant social analysis, Skal examines the amazing phenomenon of Halloween, exploring its dark Celtic history and illuminating why it has evolved-in the course of a few short generations-from a quaint, small-scale celebration into the largest seasonal marketing event outside of Christmas.

Traveling the country, Skal profiles a wide cross-section of America-hard-nosed business men who see Halloween in terms of money; fundamentalists who think it is blasphemous; practicing witches who view it as sacred; and more ordinary men and women who go to extraordinary lengths, on this one night only, to transform themselves and their surroundings into elaborate fantasies. Firmly rooted in a deeper cultural and historical analysis, these interviews seek to understand what the various rituals and traditions associated with the holiday have to say about our national psyche.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

All Hallows Eve, to use one of its many aliases, is a night when usual distinctions between fun and fear, children and adults, the living and the dead are magically blurred, argues Skal, author of V Is for Vampire and co-editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Mixing historical fact ("witch-hunts were aided and abetted by European texts like Malleus Maleficarum, and reinforced the misogynistic, witch-as-crone stereotype for the New World") with folklore and urban legends, Skal makes his study much more treat than trick. He recounts the holiday's evolution from the pagan new year of Samhain to a night that has brought the likes of the Miami child murders of the early 1980s and the "Perfectly Under Control" Halloween of Martha Stewart. Skal interviews people who have a particular affinity for the darker side, like horror maven Clive Barker and the mother-and-son duo who run a Horror Hotel Monster Museum, and ends with Halloween 2001, when "never before had so much genuine human feeling and civic solidarity been expended on a holiday previously notorious for its antisocial aspects."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

An expert in scary culture, Skal (V Is for Vampire; The Monster Show) gleefully explores Halloween in America. His exploration of Halloween's origins is competent and evenhanded, but his real focus is on the present, where a lucrative industry has supplanted a frightening holiday. He reveals the people behind the industry who devote their lives to the dark side of American kitsch, covering the Halloween movies, Halloween among the gay community in San Francisco, and tourism in Salem, MA. He also includes a chapter on the effect of September 11 on Halloween celebrations. His breathless attempt to set the book's tone with the tale of a real-life bogeyman feels forced, but as soon as he digs in and starts debunking Halloween urban myths rather than playing into them the book comes to life. Skal's book draws upon Lesley Pratt Bannatyne's Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History (Pelican, 1998), but Skal's focus is on original research. While less comprehensive than Jack Santino's Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life (Univ. of Tennessee, 1994), this is a wonderful choice for larger collections and lends itself to a much wider audience. Audrey Snowden, formerly with Clark Univ., Worcester, MA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1st edition (September 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158234230X
• ISBN-13: 978-1582342306
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #325,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Holidays

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Something of a letdown., January 29, 2004

By 

Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween (Hardcover)

Like many in the baby boom generation, I grew up loving Halloween and have been reluctant to give the holiday up. For years I had a rather elaborate yard haunt that seemed to grow bigger and bigger each year. I haven't put on the annual production in a while but one of these Octobers the casket is going to come out of the garage then its trick-or-treaters beware. With that in mind, one day while browsing around Amazon I came across this book and it caught my interest given my love for the macabre holiday and its traditions.

David Skal in this book gives the reader a quick overview of the holiday. There is a little on the history, a little on the traditions, a little on the legends and a little on about the darker side of Halloween. There is not however much detail on any subject. For example his chapter about Halloween movies deals almost exclusively with the "Halloween" movie series and its shortcomings. If he had just switched over to television he could have written an entire chapter just on The Simpsons, let alone all of the other series that have started to do Halloween episodes, something almost unheard of before 1990 or so.

I found his chapter on debunking the poison candy myths to be one of the best in the book and was of course attracted to the chapter on yard haunts. The chapter he offers about witches was also interesting although I am sure there are some Salem merchants who would disagree. Overall this is a pretty good book but it could have been much better. The appearance of the author's personal agenda on occasion didn't help but overall I just never really got a feel for what he was trying to say about Halloween. I enjoyed the book and did pick up a few bits of information but I couldn't help but think something was missing. The man has to love Halloween to have written so much about it but that love for the holiday just doesn't come across in this book.

Yes, there is something about Halloween that has a great appeal to my generation. I can't really explain it and so I guess I can't complain if Mr. Skal can't either. This is not a bad book; it just doesn't live up to the glory of the holiday it is about.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A promising start that never reaches its fullest potential, November 12, 2003

By 

Eric the Squish (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween (Hardcover)

Being a fan of Mr. Skal's writing (Monster Show is an annual literary tradition for me) and of Halloween in particular, I picked up this book hoping to find a detailed historical account of Halloween and all of its manifestations (from cultural to the commercial).

The initial chapters delivered this perfectly, and I thoroughly enjoyed his account of the origins of Halloween and its cultural significances, however, beyond this riveting opening, the author goes on to pursue disparate topics marginally related to, or peripherally effected by Halloween. The whole came off a little disjointed, with too much emphasis given to topics that might have made better footnotes than chapters. I would rather have had pages of more in-depth information on the Jack-o-lantern or druids than the West Coast Pride parades. That's not to say the borderline topics of the individual chapters weren't interesting, I enjoyed them all and found some of them truly fascinating in their own right, but I couldn't help but want to revisit the initial chapters' themes.

I wanted more History with my Halloween, as per the book's title.

Granted the first half of this book may be reason enough to buy it (The Candy Man story gave me the creeps), but ultimately, I would rather have had a 300 page detailed exploration of the themes and ideas brought up in the first half of the book, with the remainder of the chapters' topics sprinkled about where necessary. Still, it's a well researched, well written book that can enlighten anyone with more than a passing interest in all things Halloween, I have certainly learned a lot reading this book. There may be a few rocks in this trick-or-treat bag, but ultimately it's a rewarding and engaging read.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Warning to Readers, November 4, 2002

By 

David J. Skal (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween (Hardcover)

Although I appreciate Amazon.com for providing a forum for customer reviews, it needs to be pointed out that the review of my book DEATH MAKES A HOLIDAY by "Zaine Ridling" is an unattributed cut-and-paste of a piece actually written by USA TODAY reporter David Colton and published by USA TODAY last week. While the review is very favorable, I hope that Amazon.com will nonetheless take appropriate steps to give a correct attribution to this copyrighted work. As an author, I am sensitive to issues of copyright law. USA TODAY deserves an attribution, if not an apology.

In order to post this message, I am required to "rate" my own work. I will dodge the issue by going for the neutral middle ground -- a "3." (The system doesn't allow me to chose 2.5.)