So much for that

In case you haven't noticed, Lionel Shriver is my new favorite author. Unsentimental, at times abrupt, but ultimately kind, she writes with a rare precision and clarity about human emotions and connections. She reminds me so much of George Eliot in her ability to capture people's struggles with life choices - large and small. This book is about so much I can't seem to describe it: terminal cancer, marriage, parenting, disability, love, friendship, money. I guess it's about the costs of things and the value of a life. It's hard to read a book that's 450 pages about a husband taking care of his wife as she dies of aggressive cancer - it's gross and uncomfortable and depressing. Somehow this writer makes the subject bearable. She reminds us that we all have to participate in the decline and death of a loved one at least once in our lives - more than once, if we're lucky.