STANDBY

Critic Anatole Broyard died of prostate cancer in 1990; his wife made these notes to record her pain over losing him. Her grief followed no tidy stages, but lurched from self-doubt to despair to bone-tiredness. She was angry at how death just grabbed people (first Anatole, then, less than a year later, her brother). Her grief was so relentless she wondered, "is it a way of being loyal to Anatole, staying close to him by sinking into this mire?" However, there's very little about Anatole in the book (although that's obviously its selling point). In fact, Broyard found herself looking for another love: "I want... to be with another man, but I'm scared that I won't be able to connect." To understand herself better, she explored a variety of wellness and body movement workshops (Kripalu, Feldenkrais) and consulted a shaman. Finally, Broyard let go of her grief and began appreciating simple wonders, like the water lilies that suddenly appeared in her backyard pond. Her journey to this fragile peace wasn't easy, and she's frank about her motivations: "I don't want to write a comforting book.... I want my words to be strong, to ring true, to reverberate with the pain and the hardness and the stink, the putrid stink of death." This brutally honest portrait of grief is often painful, yet still poignant. Agent, Lynn Nesbit. (Feb. 18)