February by Lisa Moore

February

Lisa Moore

February snow and ice drift through this exploration of loss as widow Helen recalls life with her husband and family, lives in the present and tries to look forward. Rooted in a real-life tragedy, and written in episodic style, each chapter is almost a short story in itself. Memory and imagination build to the moment of her husband's violent death, as grief and endurance are both lyrically and plainly described. Will hope win out?


Extract
Now it is dusk, and Helen is standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom holding a sodden ball of paper towel. She was a young woman, she thinks. When Cal died.
And at first you think you will not be alone forever. You think the future is infinite. Childhood seems to have been infinite. Downstairs, the saw revs and Helen hears a stick of wood fall to the floor. And so will the future be infinite, and it cannot be spent alone.
Parallels
  • Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg
  • The Mariner's Star by Candida Clark