A dark dark satire with moments of beautiful prose. Waugh’s novel prefigures Jessica Mitford’s ‘The American Way of Death’ (1963) by exposing the cynicism of the funeral home business, for humans and pets. Dennis Barlow is a transplanted Brit who launches a writing career in Hollywood, but can’t seem to write. He fancies himself a poet, but cannot compose. His fallback job lands him in a pet cemetery, which leads him in a roundabout way to a relationship with Aimée Thanatogenos, a cosmetician at a funeral home. Somehow, despite his shiftlessness, Dennis always lands on his feet. Waugh’s epigraph warns, “this is a nightmare and, in parts, somewhat gruesome. The squeamish should return their copies to the library or the bookstore unread” (p.1). Yet it is not without charm, in a sociopathic sort of way.