WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR,A - Ballantine

A sprawling, complex family history, A Widow For One Year will appeal to readers who like old-fashioned storytelling mixed with modern sensitivities. Wisely and carefully crafted, it's a novel about grief, the kind that lingers, and about families, the ones we're born into and ones we make for ourselves. Author John Irving is among the few novelists who can write a novel about grief and fill it with ribald humour soaked in irony.