"Controlled and fearless perfection." -- Carolyn See, The Washington Post "A sustained meditation on the grinding wheel of family, with mother always at the hub; on the countries of our past, both real and emotional, which we have fled and in which we have felt like strangers; on death as a devastating injury and dying as an irritating inconvenience . a memoir about death that portrays it as it is, not as we would have it be, as we so often tailor it both in memoir and fiction." -- Anna Quindlen, The New York Times Book Review "Visceral and wrenching, this is a memoir of mourning . Kincaid's revelations are both intoxicating and redeeming." -- René Graham, The Boston Sunday Globe.