Landscape Without Gravity: A Memoir of Grief

The death of her younger brother from AIDS at age 31, only months after he revealed his diagnosis to his family, sent Ascher on the unexpectedly wrenching journey of grief that makes up this unflinching and often lyrical chronicle. Acknowledging the distance that had developed between Bobby, a gay man and ``a wild thing,'' and his family, who were ``trained in New England restraint,'' Ascher ( The Habit of Loving ) determines to explore the love for him that she rediscovered in the profound loss she felt upon his death. A few months after attending his memorial service in New Orleans, she returns there on a ``pilgrimage'' to connect with Bobby's lover and his other friends; later, she joins a grief support group at her Manhattan church. But mostly, her book records the shifting shape and process of her sorrow. Marked by candor, humor, vivid imagery and a spirit of affirmation, this memoir covering a year's time expands upon a widely discussed ``Hers'' column Ascher wrote in the New York Times in 1989. (Mar.)