Dave Gallagher is a cemetery worker charged with the care of historical graveyards around Harwich, Massachusetts. He mows lawns, digs graves, and tries to keep the peace between ghosts living among the headstones. With tension mounting in his relationship and the recent passing of his best friend on the horns of a bull, Dave is stuck between living a more fulfilling life or one of monotonous familiarity. Dave’s girlfriend, Jessica, knows she is going to die at the age of eighty-five, a love-letter from a long forgotten beau stopping her heart on her front step. Their playboy roommate, Lenny, will barely make it into his thirties. Uncertain of his own death, Dave travels the New England countryside on a quest to learn his fate. Along the way, Lenny pushes Dave to follow in his own footsteps of nonstop debauchery, even at the risk of his future descendants. Jessica tries to get Dave to evict Lenny, sick of his disgusting morals and even more disturbing nightly habits.

Living in Cemeteries is set in a world slightly different from our own. Wrongdoing is atoned for by a person’s descendants. Murder and cruelty does not go unpunished. Spirits decapitate relatives of serial killers. They lay pox blankets over men whose distant relations were responsible for the Trail of Tears. As death can only be determined by visiting ghostly relatives, and prompted by Jessica’s desire to map out their lives together, Dave visits graves, asking the dearly departed about the dirty deeds of his predecessors. Since his father has refused to speak with him since passing, Dave wonders how the terrible things he might have done could determine his own demise. As the arguments between Lenny and Jessica escalate, Dave visits his father’s grave, a shovel in hand, ready to dig up his remains and finally hear what his father has to say.