Love and Death in a Perfect World

Everyone wants a piece of Rosemary Ellis. Her husband, her high-maintenance kid, her pregnant friend, the neighbor with the scary husband, the lonely guy with cancer, the local water-fight forces. Of course she should give all she has to give. It's what women do, right?

With stark insight and wry humor, Love and Death in a Perfect World follows the arc of a modern woman's life from tender adolescence to hard-edged middle age, offering a fresh, honest look at women's lives today.

Against a backdrop of birth and death, financial turmoil, and environmental clashes, Love and Death in a Perfect World explores deep questions about human nature and modern life: How do we find connection in fractured middle-class America? How do we navigate a world that does not behave as promised? And where do we find the strength to rebuild our lives when expectations are shattered and the "wrong" people win?

Gerber delivers a richly textured yet unsentimental portrait of a family that keeps on keeping on, and of a woman who expects to "live in the light" but must instead fight to find her own light in the darkness of everyday life.