Loved One, the

Loved One, the

Subtitled An Anglo-American Tragedy, Evelyn Waugh&#39;s The Loved One is a witty satirical novel on artistic integrity and the British expat community in Hollywood, published in Penguin Modern Classics.<br /> <br /> The more startling for the economy of its prose and plot, this novel&#39;s story, set among the manicured lawns and euphemisms of Whispering Glades Memorial Park in Hollywood, satirizes the American way of death and offers Waugh&#39;s memento mori. Following the death of a friend, poet and pets&#39; mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering into 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. There, Dennis enters the fragile and bizarre world of Aimee, the naive Californian corpse beautician, and Mr Joyboy, the master of the embalmer&#39;s art...<br /> <br /> A dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide, The Loved One depicts a world where love, reputation and death cost a very great deal.