The Book of Resting Places: A Personal History of Where We Lay the Dead

In this insightful collection of personal essays, Mira y Lopez proves a poetic, thoughtful, and at times surprisingly funny narrator in his quest for the most meaningful way to remember the dead. In “Monument Valley,” about the valley on the Arizona-Utah border that came to represent the whole of the American West in film director John Ford’s work, Mira y Lopez poignantly asks, “What is the right memory in the face of all we’ll forget?” Mira y Lopez covers a range of subjects, including the science behind both astronomical and dermal sunspots (the latter in connection with the susceptibility toward skin cancer he inherited from his father), the largest U.S. time capsule in Kansas, and a Scottsdale, Ariz., cryogenics center. He is at his best when finding emotional resonance in the intricacies of a scientific theory. In “Parallax,” he describes the source of sun spots on skin (“harmless if cared for,” mere signs “that the body they rest upon moves in time and space”), but also explains, in accessible prose, Galileo’s use of parallax to determine the displacement of celestial bodies. Despite the breadth of subject matter, at some point every essay returns back to the loss that looms over Lopez’s life: his father’s death from a brain tumor. Mira y Lopez’s contemplation of mortality and memory makes for a collection of quietly profound essays. Agent: Matt McGowan, Frances Goldin Literary. (Nov.)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated two of the locations mentioned as well as the author's last name.