A private investigator with a haunting past, Bill Edgar’s life was never destined to be ordinary. Rising to international fame as the ‘Coffin Confessor’ – the man who crashes funerals on behalf of the deceased, giving voice to their last wishes – Bill dismantled many of the assumptions we hold about truth, dignity and the business of dying.
Swindlers, cheaters, vultures, liars and con-artists – there isn’t a musty corner of the human soul Bill hasn’t confronted. Loved and loathed in equal measure, his only concern is being the caretaker of the secrets and desires his clients have entrusted to him. Shame and outrage, healing and comfort are left up to those left behind.
But it’s a request from one woman to hand-deliver a bottle of wine to her husband on the anniversary of her death that raises deeper questions: What do we make out of the handful of days we’re given? If hate and injustice are so hard to bury, why does love have a knack for triumphing? Are the most profound acts in life sometimes the most quiet ones?
The Afterlife Confessional follows Bill’s journey for answers as he looks through the dizzying kaleidoscope of his clients’ lives – the widower who escaped an aged-care trap to take her husband’s ashes on the road trip of a lifetime; the man who spent his life paying it forward to try to make up for one shameful act; the closet dominatrix who quietly confronts her husband’s infidelity by comforting those truly in need; the devoted couple who insist on going hand-in-hand into the afterlife.
Heartbreaking and hilarious, outrageous and wise, The Afterlife Confessional is Bill Edgar’s fascinating account of the things he’s witnessed and learned as the Coffin Confessor – the bizarre and beautiful ways we live and love, the finality of death and the power of legacy, and how letting go can sometimes be the first step to living on.
