Putting Makeup on Dead People (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Putting Makeup on Dead People
"Being awake and knowing someone else will never wake up again. That's me." Donna Parisi isn't just thinking about her father's death, which has left her feeling stunned and incomplete even several years later, but about death in general. In fact, she's decided that she's not going to join her classmates at the local university but instead attend a vocational program—to be a mortician. In a YA literature dense with irony and camp, Violi bravely tackles this story without the slightest bit of satire and instead dives deep into the meaning of ritual and passage in American life. Donna definitely struggles with transitions herself as she takes her first step into sexuality and coupledom with a not-entirely-satisfying college boyfriend, and as she reacts with disbelief to her mother's finding a boyfriend, but her feeling for the importance of her work is genuine; nor does the book shy away from the practical details of the process, but it's imbued with respect for all involved. Donna's investigation of various cultural rites provides additional context for her decision, but it also operates as a device to prompt Donna's reconnecting with her aunt, long estranged from Donna's Catholic family after she turned to paganism, who proves to be a warm ally as well as a conduit to Donna's much-missed father. Character portraits, both of the living and of the dead (outlined notebook pages, interspersed with the main text, summarize the funeral honorees), provide humor and sympathy; Donna's vibrant friend Liz is a staunch support and partner in exploration, and the various mourners effectively represent the wide spectrum of emotional response. A natural discussion starter, this will be an obvious choice for book clubs; many readers will be moved by the poignant examination of the passages in and from life, and they'll be glad of the Donnas who step up to guide us through them. [End Page 544]
