Grave Matters

What better way to learn about life than working in a cemetery? This is exactly what happens to the main character, Martin Stevenson, in Grave Matters. Martin alludes to the “lost year” he has left behind when he stumbles into employment as a grounds-keeper in a cemetery in the middle of Kansas. There, he secretly takes up permanent residence camping in an obscure corner of the cemetery. The reader sees life through Martin’s eyes as he “digs out” from his past and interacts with the quirky characters he works with. Martin serves as a muse as the reader learns lessons of life from the stories and experiences told by his co-workers. Through these lessons, Martin comes to find some of the answers about life he has been searching for through the experiences framed by death. Each chapter is an episode that takes place in the cemetery, spotlighting each employee and their unique experiences. In the end, both Martin and the reader come to realize that a person’s identity and life are not shaped by what we appear to be nor by the compartments that constrain us, but by how we live our lives.