Following the death of a friend the poet and pets mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park Within its golden gates death American-style is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday-and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimee Thanatogenos a naive Californian corpse beautician and Mr Joyboy a master of the embalmers art Waughs dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide depicts a world where reputation love and death cost a very great deal