Barney dies and leaves Tessie with a run-down bookstore and lots of questions. What were his secrets? Where was his money? And inevitably, what was the nature of this long marriage she thought she understood, and the husband she thought she knew? Meanwhile, the neighborhood turns violent, and Tessie hires a young tough who may be at the center of it. Has she gone crazy? Her daughter thinks so. Her widow friends think so, too. Will Tessie survive? "it shines with the subtlety of its patient and originial intelligence" -Joseph McElroy