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Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch is the author of Apparition & Late Fictions (stories), The Sin-eater: A Breviary (poems), and A Good Funeral (coauthored with Thomas G. Long).

Poetry

The Church of Santa Claus

The Church of Santa Claus—St. Nicholas— in Galway’s Latin Quarter was once used by Cromwell’s men, in 1652 to stable their horses after the siege...
First Person

Grieving my daughter’s suicide in a time of wider grief

My years of experience as an undertaker didn’t make it easier.
Poetry

The sick of the palsy healed and his sins forgiven

Engraving by James Newton after Charles Reuben Ryley, 1795...
Books

Thomas Lynch's Christmas picks

I recommend Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Mothers, Tell Your Daughters (Norton), a selection of short stories about mostly hardscrabble, down-market women in southwestern lower Michigan....
Poetry

What shall we say?

A triptych for Thomas G. Long
Books

Ask a mortician

Morticians haven't charged too much, they've done too much. With this precisely correct claim, Caitlin Doughty earns her contrarian stripes.
Books

A Door in the Ocean, by David McGlynn

In his sparkling new collection of essays, David McGlynn wrestles with some of the same fierce angels that haunt his short stories.
Books

Muckraking pilgrim

Michael Moore's work is that of a repentant sinner called to bring the news—not all of it good—to folks who would rather do without it.
Cover Story

Thomas Lynch's formative moments

I was raised by Irish Catholics. Even as I write that it sounds a little like "wolves" or some especially feral class of creature. I don't...
Cover Story

The holy fire

Cremation: A practice in need of ritual

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Faith Matters

Making for home: A kinship of gifts

To the Ephesians and Philippians, to the Galatians and anyone who would listen, Paul’s message was the same.
Cover Story

Grave affairs: HBO's 'Six Feet Under'

Like David Fisher in the award-winning HBO series Six Feet Under, when my father died, I embalmed him. My brother Pat assisted....
Faith Matters

Passed on: Vocation and the family business

The photo of the new priest among his people is an old one. “First Solemn High Mass,” it reads in white handprint in the top right corner, “of Rev. Thomas P. Lynch,” and on the next line, “St....
Cover Story

Good grief: An undertaker's reflections

It’s sunny and 70 at Chapel Hill....
Feature

The dead and gone: Rituals of mourning

Not only did they die, they disappeared. There’s the terrible fact becoming all too clear....
Cover Story

Witness and remember: McVeigh's execution should be televised

After 30 years of directing funerals, I’ve come to believe in open caskets....

More by Thomas Lynch ›