This subtly but profoundly dazzling exploration of marriage, love, loneliness, grief, and tenderness from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout well deserves its place on the shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize. Lucy Barton, the narrator of this fictional memoir, chronicles her past and present relationship with her first husband, William, as she mourns the loss of her second husband. Strout's ability to lay bare the fragile human condition while buoying the reader in a sense of serene safety is a rare gift to behold! (CH)