Claire and Jim were friends, lovers, and sometimes enemies for 27 years. They prized their independence. Were sure that pre-retirement marriage would mean absolutely nothing except better health insurance.

Good thing, because Jim was diagnosed with cancer. With ever-decreasing odds of survival, punctuated by arcs of false hope, Jim's head-first crash into the medical system toward death ripped up the boundaries of their unconventional relationship.

Forced to become caregiver and patient for year and a half, they shared intimacy as close as their own breaths. Then Jim died as his lung cancer mercilessly spread to his brain. His illness and death changed first the character of their love and then the shape of Claire’s world.

Relying upon good dogs, serial gardening, and gritty roots, she stumbled upon unexpected personal freedom in the rubble of grief shaped by home repairs, career disaster, genealogy quests, and geezer dating.

Leave the Dogs at Home maps and plays with the stages of grief. Delightfully confessional, it challenges persistent, yet outdated, societal norms about relationships, and finds relief in whimsy, pop culture, and renewed spirituality.

FROM THE AUTHOR

The idea for this memoir came after throwing down the last in a succession of sappy grief books. Disgusted with tales that pandered to the myth of perfect marriages, lovely husbands, and predictable arcs of grief, I knew the rest of us with messy, complicated relationships and non-PC styles of grief needed an antidote.

My story is unflinchingly confessional as it challenges rigid, embedded rules about marriage and relationships, wades into transitory madness studded with moments of hilarity and unexpected insights.

The book chronicles a fresh look at feisty boomer widowhood in a contemporary style that is as raw and honest as Mary Karr’s Lit, mixed with the self-reliant sincerity that attracts readers to Abigail Thomas's Three Dog Life.

While grief and love maybe different for everyone, you can count on the value-shifting edge of boomer women to redefine the character of mourning and romance, to shake things up while exploring new ways to handle old issues.