An examination of the peculiarly American and bizarre practice of going out in a blaze of bills, this protest grimly reaps the disconsolate facts about the high cost of dying (avg. $1,450). All of the folkways of funeral direction and the fringe benefiters -- insurance companies, florists, casket makers and cemetery owners (""God's little million dollar acre"") are explored. Establishing as it does the Waughful truth of The Loved One, it has already attracted the pre-publication popularity of a chapter printed in Harper's Magazine.