The Loved One

The Loved One is Evelyn Waugh's savage satire of the American funeral industry and Hollywood culture, written after his 1947 visit to Los Angeles. The story follows Dennis Barlow, a young British poet working at a pet cemetery in California, who becomes romantically involved with Aimée Thanatogenos, a cosmetician at Whispering Glades, a luxurious human cemetery modeled on Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Waugh subjects American death denial, commercial euphemism, and sentimental tackiness to merciless comic treatment. The funeral home's elaborate procedures for making corpses look "life-like" and its cynical exploitation of grief provide rich satirical material. But beneath the comedy lies serious criticism of a culture that replaces authentic feeling with commercial sentimentality.

The novel shocked many American readers upon publication but became recognized as one of Waugh's funniest and most pointed satires. Its depiction of Hollywood's British expatriate community is equally sharp, showing Waugh's disdain for the film industry and American culture more broadly.

The Loved One was adapted into a 1965 film starring Robert Morse and became a cult classic. It influenced later Hollywood satires and remains Waugh's most darkly comic work.