How To Talk To A Widower

Set in the land of suburbia, 29-year-old Doug Parker has experienced more loss and turmoil than he could have foreseen in what should be the prime of his life. A year ago, he became a widower but on almost every level, he has been unable to let his beloved Hailey go. His life has spun downwards into a routine of re-living memories of their happiness, anger and sadness surging forth followed by guilt and then drinking himself into the arms of oblivion.

Ironically, he has become something of a sensation by chronicling his experience and plumbing the depths of his pain by writing a column in M Magazine.

Life intrudes in the form of Hailey’s 16-year-old son Russ whose increasingly troubled antics cannot be ignored, and in the form of Doug’s family. Older sister Claire, who happens to be his twin, is particularly difficult to ignore since she moves in with him in the midst of a personal drama of her own. She may not have handled her life particularly well, but she insists on fixing that of her brother’s.

HOW TO TALK TO A WIDOWER is the comic account of a man in mourning who must confront what is gone, what is changed, and what continues regardless. We accompany him on this brief stretch of road as he stumbles along aimlessly, making missteps along the way to finding his footing and direction once again.

One wondered whether Mr. Tropper would truly be able to carry off this style of introspective, frenetic humor for the duration of the novel in a way that would not pall on the reader. Amazingly, he pulled it off and did it in an unassuming, confidential, self-deprecating way with finesse enough to charm us even as we watch Doug misbehave. The uncensored and often sharp thoughts of our main character are refreshing, insightful, rude, and hilarious by turns and in various combinations.

Doug and his dysfunctional family are written in a true to life manner, but with the various idiosyncratic members that one occasionally find in a family somehow rounded up into one unit to bring laughter and tears.

This book is an experience that I urge readers not to pass by. For such a potentially depressing topic, we find ourselves bursting into laughter as we watch the comedy/tragedy of Doug’s life. When our time with him ends, we are left feeling uplifted and hopeful.

December 2007