In the Land of Long Fingernails: A Gravedigger in the Age of Aquarius

In the summer of 1969, author and journalist Wilkins (High on the Big Stone Heart) got a summer job as a gravedigger in a Toronto cemetery. His strange-but-true memoir of that summer will fascinate, disturb and most certainly entertain. From a gravedigger's strike to the exhumation of (most of) a corpse, the rogues and oddballs that Wilkins works alongside will both compel and repulse; a perfect example is Wilkins's abrasive, alcoholic, Scottish foreman, whose hostility belies (though sometimes reveals) a touching sense of humanity. Set against a turbulent era, the cemetery seems to exist outside of time, in a realm of intractable taboo, a curious combination of irreverence and sanctity that Wilkins captures effortlessly. With a deft command of both character and language, Wilkins's story could easily double as an out-there novel, but of course it's all the more engaging for its authenticity. Wilkins distills his bizarre day-to-day into a cohesive narrative and a compelling commentary on the times, a perfect trip for those who weren't able to take off work for the Summer of Love .