Published in 1948, The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy by English writer Evelyn Waugh is a short satirical novel that lampoons both the Los Angeles funeral industry and the Hollywood film business. British expatriates and Americans clash in this morbid but merry tale of smiling corpses and lavish pet funerals. Waugh wrote it after a trip to Hollywood during which he visited the Forest Lawn Cemetery. The book inspired the 1965 film The Loved One, starring Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, and Rod Steiger among others.

Waugh’s other satirical novels include Decline and Fall (1928) and Vile Bodies (1930). He authored more serious works as well; his most famous novel is Brideshead Revisited (1945), which explores the intersection of nontraditional lifestyles and religious faith.

Content Warning: This novel describes death by suicide and funerary practices.

Plot Summary

Sir Francis Hinsley converses at his Los Angeles home with his young house guest, Dennis Barlow, another British expatriate. Sir Francis was once the chief scriptwriter at Megalopolitan Pictures but was recently demoted to the publicity department. Dennis is a British poet who came to Los Angeles to write a script about Percy Bysshe Shelley’s life. However, the studio canceled his contract, and he now works at a pet mortuary called Happier Hunting Ground.

Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, a pretentious British actor, drops by and asks Sir Francis how things are going at the movie studio. Sir Francis says that its new policy requires that it produce only “healthy” movies. He adds that the studio dyed the hair of a female actress vermilion and pulled her teeth out so that she could play an Irish girl in its latest production. She was working 10 hours a day learning an Irish accent. Sir Ambrose expresses his view that British expatriates should accept only leading roles and castigates those who accept jobs that are beneath them. After Sir Ambrose leaves, Sir Francis concurs with his opinion and scolds Dennis for accepting the macabre pet mortuary job. Dennis leaves to pick up the remains of a wealthy woman’s Sealyham terrier. The woman opted for the pet mortuary’s Grade A service, which includes the release of a dove over the crematorium and a yearly anniversary card that reads, “Your little Arthur is thinking of you in heaven today and wagging his tail” (18).

The studio bigwigs turn down Sir Francis’s latest script and tell him to take a week off. When he returns, he finds a man named Lorenzo Medici in his office sitting at his desk. This is how Sir Francis learns that he has been fired after 25 years at the studio. Sir Francis dies by suicide, recalling how a colleague fired from the studio died penniless at a hotel. When Dennis finds Sir Francis’s body hanging from the rafters, he’s momentarily startled and finds the spectacle curious; serving in World War II apparently numbed his emotions. He visits Whispering Glades mortuary to arrange Sir Francis’s funeral. The hostess greets him and asks if the funeral he wants to arrange is for himself. This question surprises him, so she explains that many people buy “Before Need Arrangements” (37). She then asks Dennis for the “Essential Data” about Sir Francis. While giving Dennis a tour of the cemetery, the hostess explains that plots are zoned and priced according to their proximity to various pieces of art. She then asks if Sir Francis was Caucasian. When Dennis replies that he was English, the hostess explains that the cemetery is racially segregated. Before he leaves, Dennis meets one of the mortuary’s cosmeticians. Her Edenic appearance and manner impress him.

The chief embalmer at Whispering Glades, Mr. Joyboy, admits that he makes corpses smile for cosmetician Aimée Thanatogenos, whom he has a crush on. Aimée is impressed by his work and thinks highly of him. When Dennis sees Sir Francis’s embalmed body in the funeral home’s Slumber Room, he’s appalled, comparing the stiff to a smirking tortoise, but hides his disgust from Aimée. Walking through the cemetery, Dennis runs into Aimée, and they get to know each other. When she learns that he’s a poet, she’s impressed. She considers herself an artist too but regrets the impermanence of her postmortem art pieces (most are either incinerated or buried). Torn between the two men in her life, Aimée writes to spiritual advice columnist Guru Brahmin. She explains that she thinks Mr. Joyboy is wonderful but she doesn’t have romantic feelings for him, adding that she does have feelings for Dennis but dislikes his British cynicism.

Mr. Joyboy informs Aimée that he recommended her to become the funeral home’s first female embalmer. He then asks her to join him for dinner that night. When Aimée tells Dennis about her pending promotion, he responds that the extra money will allow them to get married; his unromantic proposal outrages her. The dinner at Mr. Joyboy’s house doesn’t go as Aimée hoped; she spends much of the evening in awkward interactions with Mr. Joyboy’s surly mother and her parrot. Aimée writes to Guru Brahmin for more advice. He advises her that of the two suitors, Mr. Joyboy appears to be the better choice. However, Dennis sends Aimée a poem that moves her to tears. She meets him at The Lover’s Seat, a secluded spot on the Whispering Glades grounds. They recite a Robert Burns love poem and kiss. That night, Aimée writes to Mr. Joyboy and Guru Brahmin to announce her engagement to Dennis Barlow. Mr. Joyboy doesn’t take the news well and apparently withdraws his offer to make Aimée an embalmer.

To mend her relationship with Mr. Joyboy, Aimée leaves him a note asking for understanding along with one of Dennis’s poems. Mr. Joyboy appears to respond well to the gesture and invites Aimée to the Happier Hunting Ground for the funeral of his mother’s parrot, which just died. She accepts. At the parrot’s funeral, Aimée discovers that Dennis works at the Happier Hunting Ground, which she regards as a terrible, irreverent imitation of Whispering Glades. She concludes that Dennis is a liar and a cheat. She breaks off her engagement with him and becomes engaged to Mr. Joyboy. As her wedding day looms, Dennis tells Aimée that his theological studies are going well and that they can soon marry. She responds that she’d rather die than marry him, adding that he misled her by sending her poems from long-dead poets and pretending he’d written them. Dennis blames Aimée for the deception, noting that she’s ignorant of literary classics. When Aimée says that she thought the open-casket funeral for the parrot was awful, Dennis responds that he tried to talk Mr. Joyboy out of an open casket because it only works well for dogs and cats.

Full of doubt about her relationships, Aimée calls Mr. Joyboy and says that she must see him right away to discuss their upcoming marriage. He puts it off because his mother just got a new parrot, and he needs to be with her on this special day. Feeling desperate, Aimée calls Guru Brahmin for advice. Having just been fired from the newspaper, he answers her call from a bar, and when Aimée describes her situation, the Guru drunkenly advises her to jump out the window of a tall building. Aimée tries to take barbiturates to die by suicide and falls asleep. She wakes up, walks to Whispering Glades before dawn, enters Mr. Joyboy’s workroom, and injects herself with cyanide, apparently part of Mr. Joyboy’s embalming kit. When the distraught Mr. Joyboy informs Dennis of Aimée’s death, he realizes that he can take advantage of the embalmer’s paranoia about losing his job and possibly being accused of killing Aimée. Dennis offers to dispose of Aimée’s body at the Happier Hunting Ground pet mortuary if Mr. Joyboy helps finance his trip back to England. As Aimée’s body burns in the pet crematorium, Dennis fills out Grade A service paperwork for Mr. Joyboy’s beloved “dog.”