Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains graphic descriptions of dead bodies and the cremation, embalming, and decomposition processes.

A cremation retort is a machine designed to burn a dead body until it is only ash and bone fragments. The machines that Doughty works with in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes are designed to cremate one adult body at a time. It takes Doughty around two hours to cremate an adult, though timing varies depending on the size of the body. Cremating infants takes no more than 20 minutes. All bodies have to be cremated individually so that the family can receive only their loved one’s ashes after the process is complete.

Cremation does not turn bones into ash. After a body is cremated, the bones are raked out of the cremation retort and placed into a Cremulator, a machine that uses blades or ball bearings to pulverize the bones into a fine dust. Once crushed, the bone dust is recombined with the ash from the rest of the remains before being bagged and placed in an urn. Doughty notes that some bones, such as those of infants, must be ground by hand.