Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery

Richmond, Virginia's Hollywood Cemetery tells countless stories, and, in his new book, John Peters reveals many of them. Although Hollywood has long been viewed quite legitimately as a southern shrine, there are other aspects of the cemetery that make it unique. Starting with Hollywood's role as one of America's great rural cemeteries and its incomparable setting on the mighty James River, Peter's narrative includes intriguing stories about the ironwork, stone carvers, mausoleums, and symbolism, to mention only a few. Many of Richmond's-indeed Virginia's-professional, business, political, and creative leaders over the past 160 years share the land with the 18,000 Confederate dead buried there. As Dr. Edward L. Ayers says in his foreword to the book, they "speak to us still."