{"product_id":"9780547347059","title":"The Painted Bed","description":"Affirmation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo grow old is to lose everything.\u003cbr\u003eAging, everybody knows it.\u003cbr\u003eEven when we are young, we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads when a grandfather dies.\u003cbr\u003eThen we row for years on the midsummer pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage, that began without harm, scatters into debris on the shore, and a friend from school drops cold on a rocky strand.\u003cbr\u003eIf a new love carries us past middle age, our wife will die at her strongest and most beautiful.\u003cbr\u003eNew women come and go. All go.\u003cbr\u003eThe pretty lover who announces that she is temporary is temporary. The bold woman, middle-aged against our old age, sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.\u003cbr\u003eAnother friend of decades estranges himself in words that pollute thirty years.\u003cbr\u003eLet us stifle under mud at the pond’s edge and affirm that it is fitting and delicious to lose everything.","brand":"Houghton Mifflin Harcourt","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47123010224368,"sku":"9780547347059","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780547347059_p0.jpg?v=1769915833","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780547347059","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}