Hello Goodbye

A family copes with a mother's terminal cancer in Chenoweth's moving and assured debut. The Hansens—Elliot, Helen and college-age daughter Abby—spend a week at a swanky New Hampshire hotel shortly after Helen's oncologist gives her nine months to live. Old family friends come out for the decadent soiree, and as the parents reminisce with friends, Abby wanders the woodsy grounds in a self-absorbed funk, hiding from the humiliation brought about by her mother's diminished capacity. Then one of the hotel's waiters, Alex, begins courting her with poetry and secret notes, and Abby is both attracted and repelled by Alex and the gang of summer employees, who have a predilection for skinny dipping and pot brownies. As Abby slides bumpily from shrugging off reality to facing her mother's fate, the assembled friends and family prepare for a round of wrenching farewells. Chenoweth's smart, unsentimental and poignant takes on living and dying ring true, and her exploration of coming-of-age and coming to terms with mortality is divine. (May)