The author is Jew­ish and the top­ic would be of inter­est to Jew­ish peo­ple as well as others.

On a sum­mer day in New York Jonathan Sant­lofer dis­cov­ers his wife, Joy, gasp­ing for breath on their liv­ing room couch. After a fren­zied 911 call, an ambu­lance race across Man­hat­tan, and hours pac­ing in a hos­pi­tal wait­ing room, a doc­tor final­ly deliv­ers the fate­ful news. Con­sumed by grief, Jonathan des­per­ate­ly tries to pur­sue life as he always had – writ­ing, social engage­ments, and work­ing on his art – but finds it near­ly impos­si­ble to admit his deep feel­ings of loss to any­one, not even his to beloved daugh­ter, Doria, or to himself.

As Jonathan grieves and heals, he tries to unrav­el what hap­pened to Joy, a jour­ney that will take him near­ly two years.

Writ­ten with unex­pect­ed humor and great warmth, The Wid­ow­er’s Note­book is a por­trait of a mar­riage, an account of the com­plex­i­ties of find­ing one­self sin­gle again after los­ing your spouse, and a sto­ry of the endur­ing pow­er of famil­ial love.