How To Talk To A Widower

Jonathan Tropper

When Doug Parker married Hailey - beautiful, smart and ten years older- he left his carefree Manhattan life behind to live with her and her teenaged son, Russ, in a quiet Westchester community. Three years later, Hailey has been dead for a year, and Doug, a widower at 29, just wants to drown himself in self-pity and Jack Daniels. But his family has other ideas...
Russ is furious with Doug for not adopting him after Hailey died, and has fallen in with a bad crowd. Claire, Doug's irrepressible and pregnant twin sister, has just left her husband and moved in uninvited, determined to turn his life around. Then there's Debbie, their younger sister, engaged to Doug's ex-best friend and maniacally determined to pull of the perfect wedding at any cost. Soon, Doug finds himself trying to forge a relationship with Russ, reconnecting with his own eccentric nuclear family, and reluctantly dipping his toes into the shark-infested waters of the second-time-around dating scene. It isn't long before his new life is spinning hopelessly out of control, cutting a harrowing and hilarious swath of sexual missteps and escalating violence across the suburban landscape. Funny, sad, sexy, and smart, HOW TO TALK TO A WIDOWER is a novel about finding your way, even when you have no idea where it is you want to go.

Selected by Richard & Judy as a Summer Read. Find out more.