The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards

The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards, A Memoir (2024) by Jessica Waite 309 pages

Jessica Waite's memoir details her shock and grief at her husband Sean's sudden death at age 47. Her difficulties are compounded when she comes across information that shows he had been a consumer of pornography, and also had affairs. Her money situation looked scary, too, finding that his credit cards had large balances.

The memoir starts raw with Jessica learning of Sean's death in an airport in Denver, and wanting to break the news to their nine-year-old son gently. As Jessica's grief turns to anger, the memoir chronicles her emotional journey. She comes across as fully human, sometimes saying or doing cringy things, but also showing the many resources she used to find healing.

The Fun Widow's Book Tour

The Fun Widow's Book Tour by Zoe Fishman (2023) 252 pages

Mia is a fiction writer with two young sons who was widowed about 3 years ago. In a tribute to her husband's memory, her latest book is a memoir. Reviews haven't been too positive - some reviewers are lamenting that she hasn't put enough of herself into the book. Others readers miss the humor that was in her fiction but not in this memoir.

Her three best friends, who all live out of town, got her through the first years after her husband's sudden death, and they are now working to help Mia get her book at least a bit more publicity by setting up small events in each of their cities. More important to Mia, though, is the state of her friends' relationships to their own significant others. She's trying to be a fixer. She's also navigating her relationship to her father who's been married to his second wife for a few years, after himself being widowed.

This was a very fast read, and as I discovered in the acknowledgements, the book is somewhat autobiographical for this author.

Mrs. Pargeter's Patio

Mrs. Pargeter's Patio by Simon Brett (2023) 184 pages

Mrs. Pargeter, a widow who is blissfully unaware that her husband  may have dabbled in some illegal activities during his life, finds a skull with a bullet hole in it when a paving slab from her mansion's patio cracks in two as she walks across it. A resourceful woman, Mrs. Pargeter consults with some of the numerous aides who had been deeply trusted by her husband. All of them would do anything to help her. The characters are rather caricatured, with nicknames that are memorable. For example, Fixin' Nixon could get appointments or tickets on short notice or even if sold out, Tina the Transformer could temporarily change someone's appearance to hide their identity, Keyhole Crabbe could get into any building or safe, etc.

Mrs. Pargeter is also using her husband's contacts to locate the father of Kirstie, her gardener, who hasn't seen her father since he disappeared on her ninth birthday. As that investigation deepens, Kirstie's father seems to figure into the patio investigation. The police investigation is taking forever, but Mrs. Pargeter and her crew independently discover whose body was deposited under her patio as it was being built, why he was murdered, and the scope of a whole related web of the underworld. Mrs. Pargeter is hoping against hope that Kirstie's father is still alive and that he wasn't the murderer.

This story is light, quick, and humorous in its droll way.

Amy Falls Down

Amy Falls Down by Jincy Willet (2013) 324 pages

Amy hasn't written anything to sell for 30 years, although she frequently makes time to jot story ideas in a notebook. She makes her living as a writing teacher now, interacting with most of her students online. A journalist is scheduled to come to her house one day, as part of a series of women writers in the San Diego area. Before the journalist arrives, Amy takes a fall in her yard and hits her head hard on a birdbath. She notices a lot of blood and wonders if she's dying at first, but gets herself up and into her house, not quite herself, fading into and out of awareness. This incident sets off a series of events that change her life. She had not been looking forward to the interview, but when the time came, she gave it, although she couldn't recall anything about it. However, when the story appeared in the local newspaper, interest in Amy began to build and to snowball, drawing her old literary agent Maxine back into her life, along with various interviews and panel discussions and more.

What I like about the story is Amy's quiet reluctance to put herself out there in the world again, but how she finds ways to do it anyway, along with her strategies for dealing with activities and people which she would prefer to avoid.

After reading this book, I learned that some of the backstory referred to in the novel is part of a previous book about Amy, The Writing Class (2008). Another book about her is more recent, Amy Among the Serial Killers (2022). One or both of these books will make their way onto my reading list soon.