Black Widow

Leslie Gray Streeter never expected to be a widow, and she is not good at it. She dreads the hushed rooms and the pitying looks. She does not want to stand at a graveside in a tasteful black hat. If it were up to her, she would wear her curve-hugging leopard print dress to Scott's funeral, because he loved her in it. But her soulmate has died suddenly of a heart attack, and she has no idea how to handle what she wryly calls her new widow lifestyle. She also wonders whether a widow is even allowed to joke about it.

Black Widow is her memoir of grief, told with warmth, humour and a habit of oversharing. She views widowhood through race, a mixed marriage and aging, and she reworks the usual stages of grief. Her version includes shopping for a coffin, day-drinking, crying for her mother as a grown woman, falling out and making up with God, and accepting that life goes on after the person you planned to share it with is gone.

She is also facing an uncertain future as a single mother, raising a baby alongside her own widowed mother. Throughout the book she looks back on her love story with Scott, including the racism they faced, their religious differences and their ongoing confusion over what kugel is. The book asks whether she can finish the most important thing the two of them started, and it argues that the only real guide to recovery is the one you write yourself.