The Loved One

A British poet in 1940's Hollywood becomes entangled in the bizarre, satirical world of the American funeral industry, exposing the absurdities of modern attitudes toward death and commercialization.

"A work of art as rich and subtle and unnerving as anything its author has ever done" —The New Yorker

Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday--and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art.

Evelyn Waugh's dark and savage satire depicts a world where reputation, love, and death cost a very great deal.