Round-Trip to Deadsville

the long version

"Tim Matson, assaulted by middle-aged existential doubt and morbid preoccupations, sets out to confront the demons of death and the denizens of the funeral trade. His odyssey begins when he stares down a photograph of Ginseng Willard, a flinty old Vermonter who built his own coffin from a piano case, then used it as a bed for the rest of his natural days. Matson ups the ante by deciding to build his own coffin. Like any self-respecting American literary hero, he heads out on the road to learn how to go about it. Along the way he meets an unforgettable cabal of characters who populate the funeral underground - among them the Undertaker and the Crusader, the Anatomist and the Astrologer, the Organist and the Grave-digger - and learns why the living always get the last word, and why when sprinkling ashes it's best to use a wide-mouthed urn."--BOOK JACKET.