My Review of Mark Hofmann’s book ““Good Mourning! A Review of Mark Hofmann’s Comedic Book on Death and Dying” was published on Zeroes Garden, a new online journal. During the Zoom launch party, I was invited to christen the journal before they made the journal live. I wasn’t expecting that honor.
Zeroes Garden is edited by Kushal Poddar and Amit Kamila. Take a look at this amazing new journal and submit.
My review can be found here.
https://zeroesgarden.com/article/r1
“Good Mourning! A Review of Mark Hofmann’s Comedic Book on Death and Dying” by Barbara Leonhard
Ever since I survived nearly dying from measles encephalitis at the age of seven, I’ve been obsessed with death. I recall starting to read obituaries and news stories about tragic deaths, especially of people my age.
I didn’t know how to inquire about the process of dying, the preparation of the body for burial or cremation, and other intimate details about death. Sadly, I learned that people— even my father, a pastor— didn’t want to talk about death and grief. I was taught to move on, to put my concerns in a casket, and to bury the questions and sorrow.
Death was a tragic matter. When I was six and it was the morning of my long-awaited first day of First Grade, we kids found my paternal grandmother, for whom we were caring, deceased. Having passed away while getting out of bed, she was frozen in place, half in and half out of bed. Even as I write this, I still shake, and that day when I entered the First-Grade classroom, the teacher’s desk loomed up as a beast lunging toward me, causing a full-blown panic attack.
Because I had not been schooled on the importance of the occasion, at Grandma Hattie’s funeral, I misbehaved by running around the social hall with unhinged joy after the service. The heaviness of the loss, too much to bear, had to be released. Outraged, my father wouldn’t allow me to attend the funeral of his father the following year.
Because Dad was an only child, he felt abandoned by his parents, which caused him a lifetime of anger and depression. Perhaps if our family had discussed death and his grief, the outcomes would have been different.
Death, I learned, is nothing to laugh at. You can’t run in the social hall. You sit still around the dinner table and listen to hearts melt. You dare not speak of the dead. You learn to tuck grandma in with your dolls and hide the box in the closet.
Considering the gravity of death and grief, is it a sacrilege to discuss them with good humor and hilarity? Christopher Fry, in his famous essay “Comedy,” writes, “In tragedy we suffer pain; in comedy pain is a fool suffered gladly.” ( Fry, Christopher, The Tulane Drama Review, 29 Feb 1960, Vol. 4, Issue 3, pages 77 – 79).
Tragedy and comedy hold hands. Sometimes it’s the laughter that heals. After losing her father, who had often complained of cold feet, a friend saw to it that warm socks were put on his feet before he was buried.
Mark Hofmann, award-winning columnist, would say that grief walks a tight rope held up by absurdity.
According to the publisher’s book description, in his book, Good Mourning! A Guide to Biting the Big One…and Dying, too: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Death (But Were Too Alive to Ask), Hofmann, takes a satirical look at death and dying as well as everything that goes along with it. From funeral rituals to cemeteries and everything in between, the humorist looks at the funny side …of Death.”
For those readers who may be shocked at this light-hearted and irreverent approach, there is a warning: “This book is NOT for the easily offended, but it is perfect for those who have a great sense of humor and could use a good laugh in the face of death.”
Hofmann’s book covers just about every aspect of death, beginning with death itself. Death, he writes, is “funny, crazy, idiotic, ironic and ‘idio-ronic’” because a perfectly healthy runner obsessed with clean eating can die suddenly while “the 89-year-old woman who spent her life smoking cigarettes, eating candy, cooking all her meals with a dollop of lard because she gets grease hungry after drinking her daily servings of vodka gimlets cut with a splash of lead-filled water from the garden hose attached to her house located next to a nuclear power plant (1-2).”
Hofmann explores the science of death, embalming, cremation, the weight of the soul, the different religious and cultural views of the afterlife, unfinished business, obituaries, eulogies, cemeteries, etiquette, and euphemisms for death, celebrity deaths, hauntings, the stages of grief, and many other topics in comic terms.
Let’s look at what Hofmann advises about food after a death. In his chapter “Food, Food, Food…of Death”, he points out the ironies (97-98).
“The best part of dying for the deceased’s immediate family is the food everyone brings…like a lot of food, like every kind of food—like all the food. The great irony is that it shows up at the time of your life when you’re at your least hungry, and people must believe that the grieving don’t like to cook.”
After his father died, Hofmann says that so much food was delivered that “It was like The Field of Dreams but more depressing.” He finally said,
“Thanks, but no thanks. There’s simply too much already, and I think we’re going to start attracting bears.”
“I made potato salad.”
“…we can make room.”
Earlier, I mentioned that I made the mistake of running and laughing at my Grandma Hattie’s funeral. Hofmann provides advice on the etiquette of death (155-156).
“It’s suggested never to make light of a tragic death. All other deaths, however, can use some comic relief, like making various farting noises when you kneel before the casket to pray or trying to do a ventriloquist routine with the dead body.
To avoid appearing like the cruel, soulless monster you are inside, it’s suggested, after you say you are sorry for the loss, to take a step back from the grieving family to give them space and allow them to continue to mourn. If, by chance, those grievers still want to talk to you, then run away like your ass is on fire to give them their space. Better safe than sorry, I say.”
The impetus for this book was Hofmann’s loss of his father. Hofmann shares the last time he saw his dad in his chapter, “The What Ifs… of Death!” (171- 173).
One July day, he meets his dad at a local park “to take his (father’s) truck to a boat launch a few miles away…place his canoe in the river for him to do some fishing, and then he (his father) would row back to his truck at the park, load up the canoe and drive home.” It was the last time he would see his father alive.
His father refused any more help that day, saying, “Yeah if I drown, I’ll call you.”
A group of kayakers found his father “away from shore—the upper half of his body hanging on the boat and the lower half in the water.”
When Hofmann heard the news, he said that “it felt like someone had stuck a screwdriver into the back of my head; it wasn’t a painful sensation, but it felt like something caused a strange twinge going down my back and into the heels of my feet while filling my head with cement.”
His father’s death left Hofmann with many what-ifs. However, if he had done all the things possible to save his father from the fatal heart attack, perhaps those attempts would have failed, leaving his father to suffer on life support or to endure other grisly ends. At least his father died doing what he loved to do.
These highlights may give you a sense of the comedic tone of Hofmann’s book. Peppered throughout he book are quotes on death and dying by Yogi Berra, Fran Drescher, Ray Bradbury, George Carlin, Billy Joel, and other notables. Also, the Works Cited list contains one entry….wait for it…Wikipedia!
Most of the books I have read on death and grief are serious, which is expected. However, I enjoyed Hofmann’s humorous and noir description of these tough topics.
Starlit Waters Publishing produces the second edition of Hofmann’s book. You can order it on Amazon. https://amzn.to/403XRXG
Mark Hofmann’s Bio
Mark Hofmann has been a newspaper reporter for over 20 years and is also an award-winning humor columnist and playwright. Mark currently resides in Southwestern Pennsylvania with his wife, stepdaughter, and their two dogs. He has received newspaper awards and honorable mentions from the Professional Keystone Media Awards, the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors Award, and the Keystone Press Award for his writings.
Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver 
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