“The Truth About Death”, the title novella of this virtuosic collection, is a masterpiece of sardonic humor that confronts Death head on and emerges bloody but unbowed. The serious issues cleverly addressed in “The Truth About Death” are touched with warmth, humor and deep feeling in the eight "Other Stories," not by invoking comforting fairy tales but by accepting the fact that death and grief are part of the natural order of things.

THE CONFESSIONS OF FRANCES GODWIN is the fictional memoir of a retired high school Latin teacher looking back on a life of trying to do her best amidst transgressions --- starting with her affair with Paul, whom she later marries. Now that Paul is dead and she’s retired, Frances Godwin thinks her story is over --- but, of course, the rest of her life is full of surprises, including the truly shocking turn of events that occurs when she takes matters into her own hands after her daughter Stella’s husband grows increasingly abusive.