Thomas Lynch meets everyone in his home town of Milford, Michigan—at least once. That's because he's the town's undertaker. In his 1997 book, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, Lynch did much more, however, than merely provide titillating insights into the funeral home business (though he did provide a few). What this collection of linked essays revealed was a graceful and gifted writer, a master of the "familiar essay" in the tradition on Montaigne. Lynch, who is also a fine poet (but we know how well books of poetry sell), writes well about the spiritual and moral aspects of the ways we come to terms with death. He writes with hilarious, if painful, insight into the trivialization and avoidance of death in our culture. He also conveys the spirituality of poetry, the poetry of the Irish Catholic tradition he inherited, and much, much more. His latest book, Booking Passage, is another series of linked, lyrical meditations on his relationship to his ancestral home in Ireland. For Lynch, the faith of his altar boy youth has come to mean more and more to him; but in good Irish fashion, he can criticize priests and Popes as well as revere them. Here is a writer who truly sees the transcendent in ordinary, human things.
To read Thomas Lynch's contribution to Image #45, "The Same But Different," click here.
Thomas Lynch's Current Projects
"I've just published a third collection of linked essays called Booking Passage—We Irish & Americans, which deals with my return to our family's home place in Ireland in 1970, and the dozens of trips I have made back and forth since. The collection ranges from themes of family history, ethnic identity, literature, language, local and global politics, cultural study, faith, religion and churchly abuse, to name just a few. As in my earlier books, The Undertaking and Bodies in Motion and at Rest, this collection seeks to examine the human condition as Montaigne said we ought – by looking for 'the whole of Man's estate in every man.'
My current projects include a book of stories called Late Fictions and a fourth collection of poems called Walking Papers. Both of these should be published within the next 24 months. Then I'd like to do a book on doubt."
Biography
Thomas Lynch is the author of three collections of poetry: Skating with Heather Grace (Knopf, 1987), Grimalkin & Other Poems (Jonathan Cape,1994), and Still Life in Milford published in 1998 by Jonathan Cape in the UK and W.W. Norton in the US. His collection of essays, The Undertaking--Life Studies from the Dismal Trade (W.W. Norton, 1997), won The Heartland Prize for non-fiction, The American Book Award, and was a Finalist for the National Book Award. It has also been translated into eight languages. A second collection of essays, Bodies in Motion and at Rest (W.W. Norton, 2000) won The Great Lakes Book Award. Booking Passage –We Irish & Americans was published in 2005 by W.W. Norton and Jonathan Cape.
His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, Harper's, Esquire, Newsweek, The Christian Century, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Irish Times, and The Times of London. His commentaries have been recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio, RTE in Ireland and NPR. His BBC series, Colloquies, was awarded the Sony Gold Award in 2001. He is the recipient of grants and awards from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Michigan Council for the Arts, The Writers Voice Project, The National Book Foundation, The Arvon Foundation in Great Britain, and The Irish Arts Council. He was recipient of the 2001 Michigan Author Award given by the Michigan Library Association and Center for the Book. He holds an honorary Doctorate in Humanities from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
He has read and lectured at universities and literary centers throughout Europe, The United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and across the United States. He is a regular presenter at professional conferences of funeral directors, hospice and medical ethics professionals, clergy, counselors, educators, and business leaders. He is an Adjunct Professor in the graduate creative writing program at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has appeared on C-Span, MSNBC, The Today Show, and the PBS-Bill Moyers Series, On Our Own Terms, and the PBS show Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. He currently lives in Milford, Michigan, where, for the past thirty years, he has been the funeral director; and in West Clare where he keeps an ancestral cottage.
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