Sy has lived alone since the accidental death of his wife, Anna, nine years ago. He is still struggling with her absence. He is trying to finish his latest novel, to embark on a new relationship while delving into his past with Anna, when they met as students, and into his childhood and his parents’ shattered dreams. A young student interested in Anna’s poems and writings plans to visit him for a few weeks, giving him the opportunity to try to forget Anna’s disappearance. A sad but tender novel about growing old alone.
“Loneliness kills, Judith, and chunk by chunk it eats up every part of you until your whole body is devoured. A person has no life without being connected to others, and if you’re lucky enough to be deeply connected to another person, so connected that the other person is as important to you as you are to yourself, then life becomes more than possible, it becomes good. What we have is good, but it isn’t good enough anymore, not for me, in any case, and the thing I don’t understand is why the thought of marrying me should scare you off.”