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Charles Wilkins, then a university student, took a job as a gravedigger in a vast corporate cemetery in the east end of Toronto during the hazy summer of 1969. The bizarre-but-true events of that time-a midsummer gravediggers' strike, the unearthing of a victim of an unsolved murder, and a little illegal bone-shifting-play out among a Barnum-esque parade of mavericks and misfits in this macabre and hilarious memoir.
Amid relentless gallows humor and the inevitable reminders of what it is, finally, to be human, Wilkins provides an unforgettable insider's view of a morbidly fascinating industry. In the Land of Long Fingernails is a story of mortality, materialism, friendship and sexuality… and the gradual coming-of-age of an impressionable young man.
Amid relentless gallows humor and the inevitable reminders of what it is, finally, to be human, Wilkins provides an unforgettable insider's view of a morbidly fascinating industry. In the Land of Long Fingernails is a story of mortality, materialism, friendship and sexuality… and the gradual coming-of-age of an impressionable young man.
Price: $13.99
Pages: 240
Publisher: Greystone Books
Imprint: Greystone Books
Publication Date:
15 April 2011
ISBN: 9781553658757
Format: eBook
• Shortlisted for the Trillium Book Prize
• Shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour
• Shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Prize
"If Raymond Chandler had written a memoir, I could imagine it reading like this..."
—Mary Roach, author of Stiff
"Reads like a novel... This book feels right; that is, it convinces us unequivocally that this is what working in a cemetery at the end of the swinging sixties must have been like... Just sit back and enjoy the show."
—Booklist
Charles Wilkins wrestled Don Starkell's mountainous diary into the classic work of adventure travel Paddle to the Amazon, praised by the New York Times Book Review as "a model expeditionary journal." He is the winner of three National Magazine Awards and has been a finalist for the Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, among other awards. His acclaimed non-fiction includes The Circus at the Edge of the Earth and Walk to New York, and he is the co-author, with Gordie Howe, of the bestseller After the Applause. He divides his time between Thunder Bay and Muskoka, ON.
Author's Note
Part I
1 A Half-Assed Shot at Redemption
2 The Luxuriating Harmony of the Peaceable Kingdom
3 The Unassailable Code of Cemetery Conduct
4 A Young Man of Spiritual Inclinations
5 The Practice of Inefficiency
6 The Profitable Phase of Death
7 Death's Little Acre
8 No Time to Croak
9 The Pace of Microbes and Worms
10 A Loner and a Rose Gardener
11 The Remains of the Day
12 The Business of Being Alive
13 The Imperfect Possibilities of the Venal New World
14 The Land of Low Expectations
15 No More Bullshit
Part II
16 The Most Liberated Locality on Earth
17 As Deeply Adrift as Ever
18 Housekeeping and Human Disposition
19 A Wide and Shapely Stage
Acknowledgments
Part I
1 A Half-Assed Shot at Redemption
2 The Luxuriating Harmony of the Peaceable Kingdom
3 The Unassailable Code of Cemetery Conduct
4 A Young Man of Spiritual Inclinations
5 The Practice of Inefficiency
6 The Profitable Phase of Death
7 Death's Little Acre
8 No Time to Croak
9 The Pace of Microbes and Worms
10 A Loner and a Rose Gardener
11 The Remains of the Day
12 The Business of Being Alive
13 The Imperfect Possibilities of the Venal New World
14 The Land of Low Expectations
15 No More Bullshit
Part II
16 The Most Liberated Locality on Earth
17 As Deeply Adrift as Ever
18 Housekeeping and Human Disposition
19 A Wide and Shapely Stage
Acknowledgments