Book 4 in my unintentional year of reading books about death and dying. One certain review calls it "exhilarating" and like an "adventure narrative" - I'm not sure what book they were reading, but I don't think it was this one. The strength is that the writing embodies the experience of grief and making sense of life after the death of a spouse whose life is so entangled with your own. Places that were weaker are where the self-consciousness of the cultural critic slips in.