NEW NORMAL

A widow struggles to move on in Paris’ novel.

Emilie Russell, a publicist in Baltimore, arrives at a party where her friend, Viv Parks, is trying to set her up with a man. Emilie’s not interested; she’s recently been widowed and doesn’t feel ready to date yet. Still, Viv introduces her to Colin Meyer, a lawyer who also recently lost a partner. Unbeknownst to Viv, Colin is gay, but he and Emilie connect over their similar losses and become fast friends. Emilie is still grieving and having difficulty sleeping, which is causing her to make mistakes at work, getting her into trouble with her overbearing boss. She resolves to try to recover from her grief as best she can—Colin talks her into counseling, which helps, and she also adopts a dog. She takes a girls’ trip to New York with Viv and her friends, goes on a blind date, attends her alma mater’s homecoming, and befriends Colin’s Aunt Dee, who is a delight (“Dee had, after burying two husbands of her own, made it a hobby at the ripe old age of seventy-nine of attending funerals in her small Delaware town, offering a shoulder to cry on followed soon after by a bed to sleep in”). The novel doesn’t have much of an arc or throughline but instead charts series of incidents over a year spent by Emilie mourning her husband. All of Emilie’s friends pressure her to start dating again, which seems odd given that her husband has died so recently. Still, some of Emilie’s dating misadventures are funny, and glimpses into other relationships—Viv and her husband are having problems; several of Emilie’s dates are divorced—serve as illuminating contrasts to Emilie’s own life without her husband. Emilie’s friendship with Colin is one of the best elements in the book, illustrating how simpatico friends can help each other heal. Emilie ultimately arrives at a resolution for how to live her life going forward, and her triumph gives the story a satisfying ending.

A realistic but optimistic look at grief.