Can you describe the smell of a dead body? Will I poop when I die? What would happen to an astronaut body in space?
Mortician and best-selling author, Caitlin Doughty, provides answers to these questions and many more in her new book, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death.
The book is a catalogue of thirty-five macabre concerns, many posed by children, that Doughty addresses in short chapters. Doughty draws on her career in the funeral industry to infuse each response with fact, humor, history and anecdote. Her previous titles, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity have both been New York Times best-sellers.
Today on AirTalk, Larry Mantle sits down with Doughty to talk about her new book and why she wants people to get comfortable talking about death (and the sometimes messy details).
Guest:
Caitlin Doughty, mortician and death positive activist; her new book is “Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death” (2019, W. W. Norton & Company)