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Martinac's second novel is life affirming in the best sense of that overused phrase. Focusing through the lens of a young woman's memory on a Catholic family tormented by loss and the denial of emotion, the novel chronicles how death affects Teresa Keenan, a lesbian novelist. Her favorite uncle, Jamie, is a gay political activist whose death from AIDS forces her to confront a tanglet of memories, both good and bad, many of them revolving around her sister Alison, who died of leukemia at 11, and around her parents' apparent inability to deal with that loss. But if her parents refuse to acknowledge their bereavement, Teresa's reaction is no less pained and inadequate: unable to sustain a relationship with any of her lovers, she is left to grapple with her problems in solitude, but for Jamie and his lover, Tom. Martinac ( Out of Time ) is a keenly observant writer, attuned to her characters' internal states. The book's complex structure of flashbacks is deftly handled and the reader is drawn into the lives of these people with much compassion. (Sept.)