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Just after she was born in the late 1950s, her parents moved
the family to tiny Jubilee, Kentucky, where Mayfield’s
father had decided to open a funeral home. There were two
funeral homes there – one for Jubilee’s black residents and
one for whites – but he reasoned that there was room for
competition.
He didn’t reckon on the town’s Old Guard, which closed ranks
among themselves and almost stopped the newcomer in his
tracks.
Slowly, though, and with the help of one of the town’s most
eccentric and forward-thinking residents, Mayfield’s father
was accepted in the small town and his business thrived. He
hired a few locals for help when times were busy and, as was
the norm then, he also ran one of the town’s ambulances. The
family lived in an apartment above the coffins and embalming
room, Mayfield’s mother worked her way into the town’s
social life, the Mayfield children settled into Jubilee’s
schools, and the dead came and went at Mayfield and Son
Funeral Home.
But Jubilee was no Mayberry.
Racism was a way of life there and, though Mayfield says
that the family maid was sometimes her only friend, there
was an otherwise strict separation of black and white. As
time passed, life in the small-town became a cauldron of
gossip and sniping; Mayfield was reprimanded by teachers and
taunted by schoolmates for liking a black boy; and The Old
Guard continued to plague her father, whose secrets began to
affect everyone around him. Mayfield, a teenager by then,
knew her family would never leave Jubilee…. but she couldn’t
wait to go.
Have you ever gotten a gift that was different – and
better – than you expected? That’s what happens when
you open The Undertaker’s Daughter.
You might think, for example, that the title indicates a
tale of living with a funeral director, but you’d only be
partially correct. Author Kate Mayfield includes plenty of
funny, heartfelt, sad memories of life above death, though
she starts her book with a game of bridge and a love letter
to small town life, a lifetime ago.
And yet – we see the dark spots, and the love letter soon
becomes a Dear John letter. For that, I buried myself in
this book.
While you may (rightly) see comparisons to a couple of
popular works of fiction, remember that this book is a
memoir - and a good one at that. Look for The
Undertaker’s Daughter and you’ll be glad to block off
your time for it. |
