Struggling to get back to "normal" after her husband dies, this widow constructs an elegant literary pastiche, not of grief but of renewal. She captures the infinite number of "firsts" lying ahead, from hailing a cab to locking and unlocking the door at night – even to answering responses to a singles ad placed by her daughter. A 2008 Publishers Weekly Best Book. "Radiates with raw emotion... luminous."—Booklist