Round-Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground [Paperback]

Tim Matson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

Our narrator, Tim Matson, assaulted by middle-aged existential doubt and morbid preoccupations, sets out to confront the demons of death and the denizens of the funeral trade. His odyssey begins when he stares down a photograph of Ginseng Willard, a flinty old Vermonter who built his own coffin from a piano case, then used it as a bed for the rest of his natural days. Matson ups the ante by deciding to build his own coffin. Like any self-respecting American literary hero, he heads out on the road to learn how to go about it. Along the way he meets an unforgettable cabal of characters who populate the funeral underground--among them the Undertaker and the Crusader, the Anatomist and the Astrologer, the Organist and the Gravedigger--and learns why the living always get the last word, and why when sprinkling ashes it is best to use a wide-mouth urn.

In Round-Trip to Deadsville, the author taps death on the shoulder and asks to bum a ride. Sometimes you'll feel as if Buster Keaton had slipped through a trap door into a funeral parlor in backcountry Vermont. Other times you'll be at the wheel, with Hitchcock and Sartre riding shotgun. Round-Trip to Deadsville offers thrills, chills, and laughter, but also a face-to-face encounter with some of life's Big Questions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dr, Lorna Bernaldo""Dancing the Flame"" is that new dawn in man, bringing us inside the eternal fire, inside the fire.

About the Author

Tim Matson is an award winning writer, photographer, and author of the best selling Earth Ponds series of books and videos. He is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and worked as an editor at a major publishing house in New York before moving to Vermont in the early Seventies. Mountain Brew, his first book, was one of the first to pioneer the craft beer movement, and his collection of dance photographs of the Pilobolus Dance Theatre, published by Random House, received two awards from the American Institute for Graphic Arts. Other books include Country Planet, and Round Trip to Deadsville.

His fascination with ponds began not long after moving to Vermont and taking charge of an old farm with a leaky fish pond in need of restoration. Later he bought fifty acres of forestland to start a tree farm, and taught himself how to build both a house and a pond. His book about that design and excavation project, Earth Ponds, triggered an enthusiastic response, and the pond series was born. His series of pond building books and videos have sold over 100,000 copies, and his consulting service offers design and restoration services, and seminars, across the country.

"Pond building is a rural art, and you have to learn it in the field." Matson says. "That's what makes these books unique." The newest book, Landscaping Earth Ponds, features more than sixty of the author's color photographs, in addition to drawings and color plant photos.

Matson is the father of two teenage girls, and lives in Strafford, Vermont. Visit his website at www.earthponds.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890132918
• ISBN-13: 978-1890132910
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Underground Classic, September 4, 2005

By 

Charlie Z (Louisville, KY, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Round-Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground (Paperback)

No pun intended, this short (144-page) journey through funeral homes, cemeteries, and crematoriums with side trips to probate lawyers, casket-makers, astrologers, and stone-cutters (among others) is truly an underground classic and a MUST-READ for baby-boomers. Once you start talking about it, you will be surprised how many of your contemporaries have read it. Matson doesn't have all the answers, but he raises thought-provoking questions about dying (and what happens next) in a manner which will bring a smile to your face while enlightening you about things you never thought about, much less knew--although you will quickly sense that you DO need to think about them and DO need to know about them.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book was instrumental in my career as a funeral director., December 20, 2007

By 

R.Brian Burkhardt "YourFuneralGuy & Author &#... (IL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Round-Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground (Paperback)

This book raises the key questions about the Funeral Industry.
It was very instrumental in my changing careers and becoming a funeral director. It is quite an exciting journey and the author gives you an exiting ride to deadsville and back. The book needs an update and that is why there are only four stars. Several years ago it met my needs, and answered a lot of questions. It is a book I would still purchase today, but is not the first book on funerals I would recomend. It is very descriptive and I especially enjoyed the section on Casket making.




yourfuneralGuy, Funeral Director.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eat well, stay fit and die anyway!, October 3, 2000

By 

"nhorster" (Munich, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Round-Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground (Paperback)

This wonderfully humorous book will open your eyes to the underworld. You'll never think about dying the same way again. All the important stops in the nowadays astonishingly complicated process of getting yourself underground are visited and at the end leave you wanting more... Enjoy the read, Matson does a fabolous job of drawing you into an eerie subject.