What Remains?

Life, Death, Ritual and the Human Art of Undertaking

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing UK

Death is not my friend, neither is it my enemy; it is my destiny.

“Part memoir, part rant against the traditional funeral business, part manifesto, part just musing on death and facing it with compassion and courage. It’s lovely and thoughtful and may make you rethink a few things.”—The Guardian

“This book is a great work of craft and beauty.”—Salena Godden, author of Mrs Death Misses Death

When he became an undertaker, Rupert Callender undertook to deal with the dead for the sake of the living. What Remains? is the brilliant, unforgettable story of the life and work of the world’s first punk undertaker—but it is also a book about ordinary, everyday humanity and our capacity to face death with courage and compassion. To say goodbye to the people we love in our own way.

In becoming the world’s first “punk undertaker” and establishing the Green Funeral Company in Devon, UK, Ru Callender and his partner Claire challenged the stilted, traditional, structured world of the funeral industry; fusing what he had learned from his own deeply personal experiences with death, with the surprising and profound answers and raw emotion he discovered in rave culture and ritual magick.

From his unresolved grief for his parents and his cultural ancestors to political and religious non-conformists, social outlaws, experimental pioneers, and acid house culture, Ru Callender has taken to an outsider “DIY” ethos to help people navigate grief and death. He has carried coffins across windswept beaches, sat in pubs with caskets on beer-stained tables, helped children fire flaming arrows into their father’s funeral pyre, turned modern occult rituals into performance art and, with the band members of KLF, is building the People’s Pyramid of bony bricks in Liverpool.

What Remains? is a profound, deeply moving, and politically charged book that will change the way readers think about life, death, and the all-important end-oflife experience. 

“Rupert Callender hope[s] to redefine the funeral.”—The Telegraph

“Death has shown me unimaginable horror, the unbreakable core of love and courage that lies at the heart of what it means to be human.”—Rupert Callender, from What Remains?

Reviews and Praise

  • ‘It's extraordinary. You'll laugh, you'll cry, your heart will break, your heart will shine, filled with love. You'll be changed. An instant classic.’ 

    Rob Hopkins, author of From What Is to What If


More Reviews and Praise


  • ‘Rupert Callender takes us to the dark end of the street, but he does so with wit, beauty and no little experience. It’s a one-of-a-kind ride, filled with storytelling. This original and gutsy book will do a lot of good in the world.’

    Martin Shaw, author of Smoke Hole

  • 'Part memoir, part rant against the traditional funeral business, part manifesto, part just musing on death and facing it with compassion and courage. It’s lovely and thoughtful and may make you rethink a few things.' 

    The Guardian

  • 'This isn’t a grisly book; it is sharp, angry, punchily philosophical and often funny. It basically invents a new type of lifestyle aspiration: deathstyle.' 

    The Times

  • ‘This book is great work of craft and beauty, truth and humanity, heart and soul. I believe it could be used as a teaching tool and as a comfort. I find Callender’s approach to this huge subject deeply loving and moving, but also revolutionary in spirit and courageous.’

    Salena Godden, author of Mrs Death Misses Death

  • 'Fascinating, informative, iconoclastic, What Remains? is an extraordinary memoir that will have special value for readers with an interest in the Cultural Anthropology of burial practices and rituals.'

    Midwest Book Review



About The Author


About Rupert Callender

Ru Callender was moved to become an undertaker through his experience of bereavement and its aftermath. He spent much of his childhood in the hospice where his mother worked, and the caring humanistic philosophy of the hospice movement is central to his work. He opened The Green Funeral Company with Claire in 2000 and the company is now among the country’s best-known eco-friendly funeral directors. In 2012, they won Joint Best Funeral Director at the first Good Funeral Awards and were described as ‘The best undertakers of all time, by a country mile’ by Good Funeral Guide author, Charles Cowling. Ru and Claire spoke at TEDx Totnes on death, grief, ritual and radical funerals. In 2021, Claire left the company and Ru continues with a new colleague.

Callender, Phillips, Cauty & Drummond: Undertakers to the Underworld was established as a partnership between The Green Funeral Company and The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (KLF) in 2017. Find out more at: www.thegreenfuneralcompany.co.uk and follow Ru on Twitter @wayswithweirds and RuCallender.com

Connect with this author

Books By Rupert Callender

Pages:288 pages
Size: 6 x 9 inch
Publisher:Chelsea Green Publishing UK
US Pub. Date: March 23, 2023
Hardcover: 9781915294128

Available In/Retail Price

Hardcover, 288 pages, $28USD