Usually we talk about death as a tragedy, a mystery, a hard-to-comprehend fact of life. But in addition to all that, for all sorts of people it's also ... a job. This week, stories of undertakers, homicide detectives, slaughterhouse workers, enunculators, autopsy pathologists, exterminators, and others. Does their contact with death teach them something we should learn?
-
Download Control-click (or right-click) Tap and hold to download
- Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe in Apple Podcasts Subscribe
- Transcript
Act One
The Undertaking
Thomas Lynch reads from his book The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade. (14 minutes)
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
Smugglers
Writer David Sedaris on an unwelcome surprise in a toilet — a turd. (14 minutes)
Act Five
Related
If you enjoyed this episode, you may like these
Act Two: Deceiving Others
Lawrence Otis Graham reads from an account of how he left his job as a $105,000-a-year Manhattan attorney to enter the exclusive Greenwich Country Club the only way they'd allow a black man like him: as a busboy.
Act Two: Not Just A Number
Captain Ryan Gist was given a particularly tough assignment in Iraq: To build relationships with a town where U.S. bombs had killed twelve innocent people.
Act Two: No Tenenbaum, No Tenenbaum
This American Life receives an emergency transmission from a rooftop somewhere in New York City, where John Hodgman reports on the true-life origins of Christmas traditions.
Staff Recommendations
Middle School
Stories from the awkward, confusing, hormonally charged world of middle school.
Five Women
A different kind of #MeToo story, about several women who worked for the same man.