Halloween kicks off the Octave of the Dead, eight days when Christians traditionally prayed for the souls of the departed. For this episode of the podcast I talked to Elizabeth Harper, whose essay, “The Cult of the Beheaded,” in Image 102, explores one culture’s particular history of praying with the remains of the dead.

This week we are delighted to welcome Jessica Mesman as Good Letters’ new editor.   “Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs.” ― Muriel Spark, Memento Mori It’s dark this morning. Sunrise comes later over the cornfield. The maple outside my window is yellowing,…

My son Sam, like many six-year-olds, is a devout observer of Halloween. He loves the candy, of course, but he also thrills to the other accoutrements of the holiday: the decorations, the parties, the music (his favorite song is Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”). Sam is also an unusually dogmatic trick-or-treater,…

Halloween costumes and decorations. If I’m a vampire, Pinterest is my garlic. Not only do I cut and paste at a first-grade level but tolerate little more than a basic jack-o-lantern or paper bat in my house. But come September, neighborhood front yards become graveyards. Styrofoam headstones with epitaphs like “I.M. Dead” and “Bone Voyage”…