Regular price: $24.49

Membership details Membership details
  • A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook, free.
  • 1 credit/month after trial – good for any book, any price.
  • Easy exchanges – swap any book you don’t love.
  • Keep your audiobooks, even if you cancel.
  • After your trial, Audible is just $14.95/month.
OR
In Cart

People who bought this also bought...

Mortuary Confidential audiobook cover art

  • Mortuary Confidential

  • Undertakers Spill the Dirt
  • By: Kenneth McKenzie, Todd Harra
  • Narrated by: Susan Larkin, Allan Robertson
  • Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 93
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 82
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 81

In this macabre and moving compilation, funeral directors across the country share their most embarrassing, jaw-dropping, irreverent, and deeply poignant stories about life at death's door. Discover what scares them and what moves them to tears. Learn about rookie mistakes and why death sometimes calls for duct tape. Enjoy tales of the dearly departed spending eternity naked from the waist down and getting bottled and corked - in a wine bottle.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • Reader's Digest Vignettes

  • By Jennifer on 09-22-14
Over Our Dead Bodies audiobook cover art

  • Over Our Dead Bodies

  • Undertakers Lift the Lid
  • By: Kenneth McKenzie, Todd Harra
  • Narrated by: Gregory St. John, Brian Troxell, Reay Kaplan
  • Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 39
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 35
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 35

Funerals and the all the things that accompany them are traditionally somber, contemplative events in which the bereaved look to their undertaker to guide them through that most difficult of times. Of course, sometimes tradition gets thrown under the bus. From a dysfunctional family who turn their mother's wake into a full-blown riot, to funeral crashers looking for free meals, to a horse-drawn hearse taking the dearly departed for the ride of their afterlife, these accounts from actual undertakers will have you laughing, thinking, and gasping in disbelief.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Good, but not for everyone.

  • By Marina on 02-04-16
Good Mourning audiobook cover art

  • Good Mourning

  • By: Elizabeth Meyer
  • Narrated by: Cris Dukehart
  • Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 26
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 24
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 24

Elizabeth Meyer stumbled upon a career in the midst of planning her own father's funeral, which she turned into an upbeat party with Rolling Stones music, thousands of dollars worth of her mother's favorite flowers, and a personalized eulogy. Starting out as a receptionist, Meyer quickly found she had a knack for helping people cope with their grief as well as creating fitting send-offs for some of the city's most high-powered residents.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Unusual but still a 5 Star book

  • By JB on 12-09-15
Down Among the Dead Men audiobook cover art

  • Down Among the Dead Men

  • A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician
  • By: Michelle Williams, Keith McCarthy
  • Narrated by: Liz Holliss
  • Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 95
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 88
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 90

Michelle Williams, an attractive young woman with close family ties and an active social life, describes her first extraordinary year in her unusual new job as a mortuary technician. It’s a year in which, with innate good humour, she encounters death at its most tragic, bizarre, and hilarious. Her tale, neither gruesome nor sad, is enlivened by a range of colourful and eccentric characters, from pathologists and coroners to hospital porters and undertakers, giving us a glimpse of life - and death - that few of us will ever experience.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Things you never wanted to know about a mortuary

  • By Martin on 09-25-12
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes audiobook cover art

  • Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

  • And Other Lessons from the Crematory
  • By: Caitlin Doughty
  • Narrated by: Caitlin Doughty
  • Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 3,117
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 2,877
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 2,866

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty - a 20-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre - took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. With an original voice that combines fearless curiosity and mordant wit, Caitlin tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters, gallows humor, and vivid characters (both living and very dead).

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Ms. Frizzle Takes the School Bus to a Morgue

  • By Ren on 06-02-16
Mindhunter audiobook cover art

  • Mindhunter

  • Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit
  • By: John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
  • Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
  • Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 3,040
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 2,756
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 2,743

Discover the classic behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas’ 25-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of the country’s most notorious serial killers and criminals - the basis for the upcoming Netflix original series.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Too much ego

  • By Amazon Customer on 01-27-18

Publisher's Summary

Allan Abbott ran the leading hearse, mortuary, and funeral services company in Hollywood and saw up close how celebrities really live and die. The Forrest Gump of the funeral industry, Abbott was everywhere celebrities died, from helping to prepare Marilyn Monroe's body for burial to standing next to Christopher Walken at Natalie Wood's funeral. This book tells the rags-to-shroud story of how a young man with a hearse became the funeral driver to the stars - a rollicking, unexpectedly hilarious account of glamorous funerals, mishaps with corpses, and true-life glimpses of celebrities at their most revealing moments. A treasure trove of insight and gossip that you won't find anywhere else, Pardon My Hearse is an eye-opening look at secret Hollywood from the man who literally knows where the bodies are buried.

©2015 Allan Abbott and Greg Abbott (P)2015 Tantor

What members say

Average Customer Ratings

Overall

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    3

Performance

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2

Story

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Audible.com Reviews
Amazon Reviews
Sort by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Hard to listen too

What disappointed you about Pardon My Hearse?

Too many personal dating stories and buying cars. I wanted to learn about the funeral business specifics but this was merely a guy talking mostly about his personal life.

Would you ever listen to anything by Allan Abbott and Greg Abbott again?

No

Would you be willing to try another one of Patrick Lawlor’s performances?

No he was awful

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Mad I spent a credit on this.

Any additional comments?

Skipped through many chapters of this book to try and hear what I was looking for with no success.

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
  • R. C.
  • Mesa, AZ, United States
  • 10-31-15

Not so good

Some interesting facts about old Hollywood, graveyards and mortuary science, but you had to sift through so much of uninteresting blathering on about crap no cares about, that it seemed like pulling teeth without anethesia to get through the damn book. It was a " cliched" mess. I skipped many chapters. Now, when the author was actually writing about Hollywood funerals and related info...it was good...but nit enough stuff to sustain 58 chapters!!!!!!