The Widower's Tale, by Julia Glass

Having enjoyed her Three Junes immensely, and I see you everywhere not so much, I wondered if the author had hit her stride again with this new book. Well, maybe not. The novel was an enjoyable but uneasy mix of autumnal romance, immigrant problems, eco-terrorism, "historic homes" snobbery, gay marriage, long-held secrets, and generational conflict. It also involved a progressive preschool preciously called "Elves and Fairies," and the main character, a 71-year-old man, had the annoying habit of addressing his two children as "Daughter." Percy Darling, a retired librarian from the Widener Library, has never remarried and has lived a solitary and celibate life after the tragic drowning of his beloved young wife, Poppy. Left to raise teenaged Clover and Truthful (known, thankfully, as "Trudy," I found the characters' names problematic throughout the book), he has seen the older daughter flounder and leave her husband and young children, while the younger one has become a successful oncologist whose son, Robert, is pre-med at Harvard. When Percy becomes emotionally involved, for the first time since Poppy's death, with Sarah, a single mother 18 years his junior raising adopted Rico, the various plot threads begin to weave together and come to a unhappy ends for some, although the ending is elegiac and hopeful. 402 pp.