Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains graphic descriptions of dead bodies; the cremation, embalming, and decomposition processes; deaths, including violent deaths, of babies, children, and adults; and suicide.

Caitlin Doughty is the author and narrator of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. The book is her account of her first six years working in the funeral industry in America, but it is also an exploration of her personal relationship with death. The witnessing of what she presumes is the death of a young girl when she herself was a child was a pivotal moment in Doughty’s life. After witnessing this death, she was not given the tools to cope with her trauma, as neither of her parents discussed the incident with her. She became morbidly obsessed with death as a teenager, but that obsession was colored by fear. Nevertheless, this obsession with death set Doughty on a path to pursue death work as a young adult.

In the first six years of Doughty’s career as a death worker, her beliefs about death and dying shift dramatically. She begins her career believing that death should be beautiful and fun so that people will not be afraid of it.