Showing results for "Two for the Road" in Death & Grief

Masha's life has stopped. Once a spirited, independent woman with a rebellious streak, her life has been forever changed by a tragic event 12 years ago. Unable to let go of her grief, she finds solace in the silent company of the souls of her local Victorian cemetery and at the town's lido, where she seeks refuge underwater - safe from the noise and the pain. But a chance encounter with two extraordinary women - the fabulous and wise Kitty Muriel, a convent girl-turned-magician's wife-turned-70-something-roller-disco-fanatic, and the mysterious Sally Red Shoes, a bag lady with a prodigious voice - opens up a new world of possibilities, and the chance to start living again.

'Congratulations on the resurrection of your life,' a colleague wrote to Emily Rapp Black when she announced the birth of her second child. The line made Emily pause. Her first child, Ronan, had died before he turned three years old from Tay-Sachs disease, an experience she wrote about in her first book, The Still Point of the Turning World. Since that time her life had changed utterly: she had left the marriage that fractured under the terrible weight of her son's illness, remarried the love of her life, had a flourishing career and given birth to a healthy baby girl.

Maddy is 16. Deeply curious, wry and vivacious, she's poised at the outset of adulthood. She has loyal friends, a mother with whom she's unusually close, a father she's never met, devoted grandparents, and a crush on a boy named Jack. Maddy also has cancer. Hungry for experience despite living in the shadow of illness, Maddy seeks out her first romantic relationship, ponders philosophical questions, finds solace in music and art, and tracks down her father, Antonio.