February 15, 2002

Author Weaves Son's Story Into Book on African-American Funeral Practices

By JENNIFER K. RUARK

CARRY ME HOME: Karla FC Holloway says her new book about African-American funeral practices must have been in her blood. But she never thought it would become a piece of her broken heart.

She has always had funeral directors in her family, and her father was licensed as a mortician, though he never practiced. ("My mother said, 'You may touch them or me,' and fortunately he chose her," she says.) So Ms. Holloway, an English professor and the dean of humanities and social sciences at