The reader may feel both jarred by the shift and relieved by the lighter style.
When Sophie moves to Oregon to start anew, the book's tone lightens somewhat and loses focus in the process. The protagonist takes on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) and then invents some of her own (pill popping, binge eating, drinking, lusting, pie baking). Winston makes this intensity bearable by letting the reader up for little breaths of air with the unexpected humor and cleverness of the charming Sophie. Set during Silicon Valley's turbulent Internet boom, the novel's chapters preceding the breakdown are deep, dark and beautiful in their depiction of her suffering. There's nary a moment of triteness in this outstanding debut.Lolly Winston's first novel, "Good Grief," about Sophie, a young grieving widow, begins with such gloomy intensity that it's a relief when, during a mental breakdown, she shows up to her corporate job sporting a bathrobe and bunny slippers. Sophie is wounded terribly, but she's also funny, fresh and utterly believable. Throughout this heartbreaking, gorgeous look at loss, Winston imbues her heroine and her narrative with the kind of grace, bitter humor and rapier-sharp realness that will dig deep into a reader's heart and refuse to let go. Grief comes along, too but with a troubled, pyromaniac teen assigned to her by a volunteer agency, a charming actor dogging her and a new job prepping desserts at a local restaurant, Sophie is forced to explore the misery that has consumed her.
Her boss suggests she take a break, so she sells her house and moves to Ashland, Ore., to live with her best friend, Ruth, and start over. At first Sophie is a "good" widow, gracious and melancholy, but after she drives her car through the garage door, something snaps she starts showing up at work in her bathrobe and hiding under displays in stores. Everything hurts the telemarketers asking to speak to Ethan, mail with his name on it, his shirts, which still smell like him. With the world rolling on, unaware of her pain, Sophie does the only sensible thing: she locks herself in her house and lives on what she can buy at the convenience store in furtive midnight shopping sprees. It is an early riser, waiting with its gummy arms wrapped around my neck, its hot, sour breath in my ear." Sophie Stanton feels far too young to be a widow, but after just three years of marriage, her wonderful husband, Ethan, succumbs to cancer.
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