keywords: Death, undertaking, autobiography, life, 90s

In short: A good, unusual read about an important career that is not talked about enough.Heart tugging and emotional.

Full review

This is my first try of Ruper Callender and his unusual look at life and death make for a book you wont be able to put down.
We travel through Roberts life from boarding school, to schemes, money issues, acid and his feeling about life and how those leaving whether young or old should pass to the next stage after life.

This is a fascinating, emotional read about a very unique take on a very serious, traditional job. This book is something I think everyone should read as it not only tugs on the heartstrings but makes the reader think and see things from a different perspective.

Always interested in books similar to this and went through a real phase of reading similar titles - Caitlin Doughtery etc. This was great, really interesting and I learnt a lot. Part biographical part critique I found it fascinating.

i never read the biography of an undertaker nor thought about how they live. This was a bizarre and fascinating book that talks about life and funerals.
You can love or hate but it's very interesting.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This is the memoir of an unconventional, to say the least, undertaker. When we first meet the author he is engaged in making crop circles in nearby fields and nearing burnout. Rupert, Ru for short, was 29, a Trustafarian who had burned through his inheritance from his mother on dodgy schemes and even dodgier friends. He had spent the ‘90’s in acid culture and raves and was wondering what next? Where does a love of 90’s raves take you in life? Strangely enough he decides to become an undertaker.
The book then goes onto the unexpected death of his father from a heart attack when Ru was 7 and then him being sent away to boarding school. He obviously hated it. And then it takes the reader through his life and how he inherited a lot of money from his mother hence his becoming a Trustafarian and how his lifestyle climaxed in his decision. He also discusses his mother’s involvement with the emerging hospice movement in the ‘70’s which incredibly were a ‘hard sell.’ This was due to a combination of the Calvinist view of suffering being humanity’s lot and that doctors should never give up on people.
This book records the ramifications of his decision, the people that he met along the way who decided to use his services which consisted of an ageing Volvo and a stretcher and how he managed to bring death and mourning back to a more family and community celebration or ritual. In other words, not to fear the dead. They are still your nearest and dearest but in a different state. I remember visiting the undertaker to see my mother and thinking ‘It’s not her.’ While knowing that it was. The old rituals of washing the body, dressing it, the coffin lying in the front room have all gone and there isn’t that personal connection to death. It’s all manged for you. But, as he says, ‘Why would you allow this to be done by someone else?’ It’s the last thing you can do for the person you are burying.’ He wanted to increase family involvement but there will always be those who can’t or don’t want this but then they wouldn’t come to him anyway.
Death is the final ritual that comes to our loved ones and ourselves, maybe at the end of a long life well lived or because of a traumatic event and it can feel like being processed with no personal contact. Most of us go to a high street funeral as there seems nowhere else to go but it does feel as if the funeral process is being managed and taken out of our hands. Some people are happy with this, but others are not. Also, it can feel so sad when still reeling from the death of a loved one to be looking at coffins.
But there are more alternatives available today these days; Humanist minsters, woodland burials – I attended one funeral where the body arrived in a wicker basket and was taken out of a white Transit van. They make the death and the burial more personal and less of a conveyor belt.
And that’s what Rupert, Ru for short, Callender, the author, is trying to do, to de mystify the whole mystery the whole mystery that leads up to the curtains fluttering shut as they swallow your loved one. He is known as ‘the punk undertaker’ and as he says in the Patti Smith quote which he references several times in the book ‘People have the Power.’ He also says that ‘Death is not my friend neither is it my enemy. It is my destiny.’
Some parts may not be for the squeamish such as the chapter on the embalming process and the environmental hazards of cremation which I hadn’t considered.
He also references books such as Jessica Mitford’s ‘The American Way of Death’ which had a lot to say about the US funeral trade and its practices.
But there is humour; admittedly bible black in nature, but it made me smile. As he was establishing himself as an undertaker, Ru did some PR with a couple of local papers which resulted in a photo of him ‘wearing a dark suit with the Oxford Book of Death tucked under my arm, a strange comic hybrid of Walt Whitman and Gomez Adams.’ Later when he acquires a partner Claire, both business and personal.’ they were featured in various publications and had ‘taken to posing like a moody post-punk synth duo.’
There’s a definite air of the shaman about Ru in the way that he conducts ceremonies and encourages mourners to do it their way. His funerals sounded more like ceremonies, a fitting send off. And then there was his involvement with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty of the legendary KLF and the Toxteth Day of the Dead and the Boney Pyramid….
It was a fascinating book but at times it was a difficult read. An alternative view of funerals and the final ritual by someone who has taken another path. It was also a surreal read….
I loved the descriptions of the crop circles that he created and how these ‘temporary temples’ made him feel and the shamanistic element of what he was doing re appears throughout the book as he becomes almost a master of ceremonies at funerals. Especially towards the ned when he describes the funerals held at Sharpden’s, the natural burial place that he established near Dartington Hall. There is a section on the symbolism of crop circles as ‘they are symbolic tunnels to the underworld.’ And ‘pinholes through a burial shroud inexplicably releasing beams of light.’
This book won’t be for everyone, but I enjoyed reading it.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

Opinionated. Frustrated. Honest. Trauma-driven. Eloquent. Intelligent. Politcal. These are all the words that came to mind when I started reading this book.

I found 'What Remains?' quite difficult to read. For me, it didn't really get started until Chapter 6, and the 'About the Author' part at the end of the book had condensed these five chapters into a few paragraphs, which I found much more enjoyable to read. It would be easy to give up on this book during those first five chapters, but I'm stubborn and don't like to give up when presented with a challenge. However, the desire to carry on reading this book only lasted a few chapters, and I was back to just not wanting to give up. I find the book is over-written, and repetitive in parts. I'm not really sure why this book was written - is it to promote his undertaking services, or promote other ventures? I think the aim is to drag death into the 21st century, and I quite like the ethos of his funeral service, but I dont think this book is the right way to go about attracting business.

I thought the book would have more 'undertaking' stories, but to me it was more of an attack on the system.

I was approved for an ARC of #What Remains? by Rupert Callender from #NetGalley

I’ve experienced my fair share of grief and funerals in my time, particularly in the last 5-6 years, but I’ve never really given much thought to the undertakers beyond them just being there to do their job, so this was a fascinating read for me.

It’s not a perfect book - I’ll get to that - but it is seriously powerful, and you’re swept up in such emotion reading it.

There’s more to Rupert’s background than I thought there’d be, probably the first 25%, and at first I thought perhaps it was verging on too much, but considering the next three quarters is full on undertaking it made sense to give some context to his career decision.

Some of his beliefs, some of the ways he works, are not for me. But who am I to say they’re not for anyone else? I’ve been to church funerals, burials, cremations, spiritual and humanist. And whilst they may not have all been what I would have wanted, they’re always perfect for the person in question, and I think Rupert has done a really good job and expressing the humanity side to death.

To me, undertakers are very polite, but quiet, professional and stoic individuals who help make a terrible day go as smoothly as it can. They show respect and they swallow their own feelings on the day. They don’t seem to get affected by the continuous death. They become symbols of death and of the funeral industry, rather than as individuals, and I think that’s where Rupert is trying to change things. Don’t get me wrong, he seems like a polite man, professional, caring, stoic in the presence of grief (I haven’t met him so he may not be any of these things at all but I hope he is), but he reminds us that undertakers and funeral parlour employees, and priests and celebrants are all human, and working hand-in-hand with death on a daily basis will of course have a huge toll on them, but it also gives them a huge understanding of bereavement.

I found the section about suicide incredibly moving. Like I sad, I’ve experienced a lot of death in the last few years, old, young, middle aged, men, women, dementia, cancer, pneumonia - but the one that will always stick with me is the one by suicide. And Rupert was so tender and respectful that it was almost too moving to read.

I liked his idea that death and funerals can be uplifting and, almost funny. My dad’s funeral 5 years ago when he was jut 57 and I was 24 was a fun event. Sure it had the hearse and undertaker and the songs and whatnot. But it wasn’t religious. For the reflection part, we encouraged everyone to sing Frank Sinatra’s My Way as loud and as badly as they could, and we all left the room to Monty Python’s Always Look On The Bright Side of Life. We then had a wake where lots of alcohol was drink and memories shared and it was a really fun day. For someone who hasn’t experienced death, that might be horrendous to read. But it really was. Granted, I’d have preferred if he was still alive and the funeral and wake were not needed, but we can’t control that. We can only control what we did, and we decided to have fun.

He’s a very sensitive writer, aware that whilst he beliefs in doing things a certain way, he understands that the whole grieving journey is difficult. He’s been very respectful around the case studies. He doesn’t give us too much information for us to identify the bereaved families, but just enough so we can empathise. He doesn’t beat around the bush or sugar coat things. Death is an ugly business but it is something none of us will avoid. It’s not for the faint hearted, but it’s important to know.

My one negative, and it’s going to sound really juvenile, is his use of big words. Now, I am a linguist. I write and edit for a living. But I found myself on several occasions having to stop mid sentence in order to look up a word so I could make sense of it. And it wasn’t for overly industry-standard words or technical terms. I would have accepted that. But complicated language had been used when I feel simpler words would have aided the flow of reading.

My mum couldn’t understand why I wanted to read this book, given the amount of grief we’ve experienced, that it must be depressing and morbid and upsetting. Yes it’s depressing. Yes it’s morbid. Yes it’s upsetting. At times. But it is also joyful. And loving. And hopeful.

I was so excited for this, another book from the death care industry. But this read more like a disgruntled person's biography and efforts to praise themself and I just couldn't get into it at all

‘Euphemisms are at the heart of what I stand against in relation to death and how we deal with it’.

This was a really compelling read about the death industry in the UK and a ‘punk undertaker’ who tried to modernise the industry and provide people with other options than are currently available or promoted through regular means. I found the author’s stories of his time at boarding school and childhood in Scotland interesting and as a Cornish person, really appreciated the focus on Cornwall. We need more people like this author and his partner in the UK death industry.

I want to preface this review by saying I tried really hard to read this book. I read it on the train to work, I read it on the train back from work, I read it during my lunch break, and I even read it when I was supposed to be answering emails. This book was a slog to get through.
What is very clear is that Callender has never forgiven his mother for sending him to boarding school after his father died. He does admit this fact early on, but it features in almost every chapter, about how angry he is. I wish he’d done more therapy before he started writing this book because it would have saved chapter space to write about, you know, the thing the book is meant to be about.
Callender comes from a place of enormous privilege. He was given a lot of money after his father died (which he happily admits to wasting on drugs and idiotic business ventures), and he’s also a straight white man who thought that eel fishing was a good way to make money. However, Callender thinks that because he identifies as a “punk”, this, therefore, makes him an underdog and that he’s sticking it to the man by lying in fields at night pretending to be a crop circle.
I felt reading this book that Callender has no respect for the people left behind by those who die. He insults them, and says that people who hold unpunk funerals are just “doing it for themselves”. That grieving families holding church funerals are all idiots, and how dare they stick to formalities because they have just gone through intense trauma.
There is never any warmth that comes from Callender’s writing – yet he claims that he cares about all the people he’s given funerals for. I never felt this at any point in the text, and Callender comes across as very cruel in several passages. I would never trust him with any funeral of my loved one, and I will just add that I’m very much the “stick me in a bin bag and throw it in the sea” type of person.
Also, the idea that Callender was “the first” person to come up with the idea of funerals that didn’t involve religion is ludacris. He acts like he’s the most inventive and intelligent person in the world because his funerals take place in a field and not a church. I wish someone had sat Callender down in his twenties and told him that just because he had a sad childhood (where he happily admits he bullied other children and everyone else did it so it was okay), that doesn’t mean he’s the specialist boy in the world.
In conclusion, I was heavily disappointed in this book, and it left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Callender claims he’s not like the greedy faceless funeral corporations, but I read a memoir of a stuck-up smug man who I wouldn’t trust with my drink at a bar, let alone a funeral. I wouldn’t recommend this book, unless of course, you’re holding a funeral pyre and need some extra kindling.
Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC.

Towards the end of the book, the author speaks of how he hasn’t expanded his business by having several branches in different places. Part of me wishes he had as when you read this book you want this man to arrange your funeral. But then again if he had you wouldn’t get the personal, attention of this extraordinary, imaginative and creative person. The descriptions of various funerals he has arranged are fascinating and very moving and he has certainly educated me about many aspects of death and the options following. I certainly will not be wanting to be embalmed or cremated having read how damaging these processes are to a body, embalmers and the environment.It was interesting to read how this man’s wish to become a funeral director was formed by his own losses of family members and how he was allowed (or not) to mourn them. However, reading the first chapter, I did check more than once that I was reading the book I thought I was! You will also learn a lot about crop circles, magik and rituals here. Some of the authors opinions were a little repetitive in places but overall a very interesting book which may well change your thoughts about your own death and departure from this world.