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Staff Pick
Giffels’s stellar memoir caught my eye due to its rather morbid subject matter (constructing one’s own coffin), but it was the author’s hearty style and spirited drive to create in the face of destruction that won me over. I won’t soon forget this lighthearted book about the heaviest of subjects. Recommended By Moses M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
"Giffels does well as a voice of the Midwest...but this is for everyone." --Library Journal
From the acclaimed author of The Hard Way on Purpose, a vibrant, heartfelt memoir about confronting mortality, surviving loss, finding resilience in one's Midwest roots and seeking a father's wisdom through an unusual woodworking project--constructing his own coffin.
David Giffels grew up fascinated by his father's dusty, tool-strewn workshop and the countless creations--both practical and fantastical--it inspired. So when he enlisted his eighty-one-year-old dad for the unusual project of building a casket, he thought of it mostly as a way to learn and to spend time together. Life had other plans.
The unexpected death of his mother and, a year later, of his best friend, coupled with turning fifty and the growing realization that his father won't always be around for such offbeat adventures, leads to a harsh confrontation with mortality and loss.
Over the course of several seasons, Giffels returns to his father's barn in the country, a place cluttered with heirloom tools, exotic wood scraps and long memory, to continue a pursuit that grows into a meditation on grief and optimism, the pleasures of woodcraft, a quest for wisdom, and a way to cherish time with an aging parent.
In this soulful, panoramic memoir and father-son story, Giffels confronts some of the hardest questions common people face with wisdom and humor, unraveling the absence and presence of the people who define us and taking a true measure of life. Furnishing Eternity is the story of a year brought down by loss, a family finding hope in its roots, and the unexpected epiphanies to be found in the things we build. Heartfelt, unvarnished, and piercing with insight, this powerful memoir is Giffels' most intimate exploration of the values and traditions that illuminate the Midwest.
Review
“An affecting memoir traces the building of a coffin and the tender pull of a father and son's relationship…David Giffels approaches these themes from a curious angle." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
"Giffels treats these heavy themes with a light touch and deadpan humor, drawing vivid, affectionate portraits of loved ones in the richly textured setting of Akron, Ohio. The result is an entertaining memoir that moves through gentle absurdism to a poignant meditation on death and what comes before it." Publisher's Weekly
About the Author
David Giffels is the author of The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches From the Rust Belt, nominated for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, the memoir All the Way Home, winner of the Ohioana Book Award, and Furnishing Eternity. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic.com, Parade, the Wall Street Journal, Esquire.com, Grantland.com, Redbook, and many other publications. He also was a writer for the MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head. He is an associate professor of English at the University of Akron, where he teaches creative nonfiction in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program.