About this item
By the time Nate Fisher was laid to rest in a woodland grave sans coffin in the final season of Six Feet Under, Americans all across the country were starting to look outside the box when death came calling. Grave Matters follows families who found in "green" burial a more natural, more economic, and ultimately more meaningful alternative to the tired and toxic send-off on offer at the local funeral parlor. Eschewing chemical embalming and fancy caskets, elaborate and costly funerals, they have embraced a range of natural options, new and old, that are redefining a better American way of death. Environmental journalist Mark Harris examines this new green burial underground, leading you into natural cemeteries and domestic graveyards, taking you aboard boats from which ashes and memorial "reef balls" are cast into the sea.
About the Author
Mark Harris is a former environmental columnist with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and the author of the signature book on green burial, Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial (Scribner, 2007). The book follows a dozen families who conduct natural burials for their dead, including burials in backyard grave sites and "natural cemeteries," as well as sea burials and funerals at home, among other strategies.He lives with his family in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
