Books to Die For

Charles Wilkins' IN THE LAND OF LONG FINGERNAILS: A MEMOIR

When people ask why I'm drawn to horror and the other fantastical genres, my answer tends to revolve around how I've always viewed fiction as a way to escape the doldrums of everyday life and stress, and experience things that would be impossible to experience in reality (because, you know, monsters don't exist and all that). But it's not always a work of fiction that provides a compelling window into another world, sometimes it can come via non-fiction or, as in the case of this week's Book To Die For, a memoir. Charles Wilkins' IN THE LAND OF LONG FINGERNAILS, which I first delved into back in Rue Morgue #90, takes us into the fascinating day-to-day life of a gravedigger - an occupation I'm willing to bet most of you know very little about. 

IN THE LAND OF LONG FINGERNAILS is set during five months in the summer of 1969 that the then-nineteen-year-old Wilkins worked as a gravedigger at one of Toronto's largest cemeteries. And if there is any doubt as to what sort of take this is, it is made unequivocally clear in the Author's Note that precedes it. Here, Wilkins confesses to having changed the names of both his former co-workers and the burial ground, as to "call it by its real name in this era of inquisitional conformity would be an open invitation to, at best, a lawsuit, at worst a contract hit - on me."

Over the course of the book, readers are indoctrinated to the crude lingo of the profession, including terms such as "sinkers," "stinkers," "cracker boxes" and "sod-tops," and bear witness to several burials, as well as one very messy, reeking disinterment. The cemetery's underpaid pothead employees exist in a state of chronic disenchantment with their jobs and their raging alcoholic boss. They routinely break laws by opening coffins to peek at their occupants or pillage the valuables. As the book progresses, even odder tales are related, including one about human bones which surface in a neighbouring resident's garden, and another about old burials being exhumed and dumped into an on-site quarry so the plots can be resold. We also discover exactly what happens when a lengthy gravediggers strike takes place during a heatwave and bodies can not be interred.

In the end, however, it is not the illegal activity or the boneyard urban legends that are most compelling. Instead, it is the human story that emerges from the morbid backdrop - one of dreams, unfulfilled goals, unexpected compassion and the ultimate fragility of friendship and of life. Without this element, IN THE LAND OF LONG FINGERNAILS would merely be sensationalistic, but instead it becomes something truly poignant. 

IN THE LAND OF LONG FINGERNAILS can be purchased in paperback from Amazon for less than $20; an eBook edition is also available for under $8.