Chapter Three Summary

Dennis Barlow is a sensible man of twenty-eight years of age who had never seen a corpse until he came home and found Sir Francis hanging from the rafters, but the sight did not greatly disturb him, because his generation has a familiarity with death via the war. He drives to a funeral home named Whispering Glades. The prospect of this visit fascinates him, because he has read about Hollywood dignitaries being buried there, and because the Happier Hunting Ground has patterned itself on Whispering Glades. At the entrance, foot-high letters carved into a marble slab that looks like an open book tell of a dream of happiness dreamed by Wilbur Kenworthy, which inspired him to start the funeral home. Whispering Glades is described as a sumptuous building with gables, chimneys, and weather-vanes. Barlow reflects that when he first visited Hollywood...