Chapter 2, Gladstone Summary and Analysis

Thomas is at the Midwinter Conference, a conference of undertakers when funeral directors in Michigan find a warm place in the Lesser Antilles to meet and hear talks. However, Thomas is on a neighboring island and notes that he has been undertaker in his town for twenty-five years. He doesn't much care to talk business with the other directors, preferring to think about his future. Thomas's father was a funeral director, as are three of Thomas's brothers. Two of his sisters help out. He remembers his father and mother going to the Midwinter Conferences, that they would come back excited about their craft.

Thomas's father was fond of quoting William Gladstone, the nineteenth century Victorian liberal British Prime Minister, about how a people's respect for the law could be measured by its respect for the dead. Thomas thinks that...