But Sophie comes to realize that grief doesn't have a timetable, and just when she thinks she has it beat, it returns to hit her again. She becomes a Big Sister to a troubled thirteen-year-old, and even meets a new man. She gets a job as a waitress, which leads her to discover a passion for baking. The final straw is when she goes to work in her robe and bunny slippers.Īfter recovering from her breakdown, Sophie decides to make a big change and move to Ashland, Oregon, where her college roommate, Ruth, lives. She goes days without showering or changing clothes. Sophie finds herself eating Oreos by the dozen and watching Cops marathons on TV. But grief isn't so easily shelved, and soon it begins to take over.

Desperate to keep some semblance of normalcy, Sophie continues to work at her Silicon Valley PR job, attempting to say good things about a flawed medical product. Ethan, her husband of four years, died three months ago, and Sophie is having a tough time keeping it together. There's nary a moment of triteness in this outstanding debut.Of all of the things she has experienced in her life, Sophie Stanton never dreamed she would be a widow at age thirty-six. Sophie is wounded terribly, but she's also funny, fresh and utterly believable. Throughout this heartbreaking, gorgeous look at loss, Winston imbues her heroine and her narrative with the kind of grace, bitter humor and rapier-sharp realness that will dig deep into a reader's heart and refuse to let go. Grief comes along, too but with a troubled, pyromaniac teen assigned to her by a volunteer agency, a charming actor dogging her and a new job prepping desserts at a local restaurant, Sophie is forced to explore the misery that has consumed her. Her boss suggests she take a break, so she sells her house and moves to Ashland, Ore., to live with her best friend, Ruth, and start over. At first Sophie is a 'good' widow, gracious and melancholy, but after she drives her car through the garage door, something snaps she starts showing up at work in her bathrobe and hiding under displays in stores. Everything hurts the telemarketers asking to speak to Ethan, mail with his name on it, his shirts, which still smell like him. With the world rolling on, unaware of her pain, Sophie does the only sensible thing: she locks herself in her house and lives on what she can buy at the convenience store in furtive midnight shopping sprees. It is an early riser, waiting with its gummy arms wrapped around my neck, its hot, sour breath in my ear.' Sophie Stanton feels far too young to be a widow, but after just three years of marriage, her wonderful husband, Ethan, succumbs to cancer.

Good Grief by Lolly Winston