Grace Period

by Elisabeth Nonas

Praise for Grace Period“What happens when your younger partner dies on her way to your retirement party? ‘Retirement, or grief?’ the hapless, endearing protagonist of Grace Period must keep asking herself as she attempts to navigate her strange new life. That might not sound like the setup for an extremely funny novel, but trust me, in Elisabeth Nonas’ skilled hands, it is. I didn’t want this book to end, but of course...it had to. I just hope Nonas will write a sequel. “ —Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

“This brave, utterly beautiful, book takes us onto the road all of us at some time must travel. We become Hannah’s closest companions on her journey through memories of Grace, the love of her life, a wandering pathway that leads her to integrate profound loss with ongoing life. “ —Katherine V. Forest, author of Delafield

“If it’s possible for a novel about loss to be both meditative and laugh-out-loud funny, Grace Period is it. Elisabeth Nonas expertly navigates around the dark space where a beloved used to be until she lands us in the place where memory makes it possible to go on.” —Jewelle Gomez, author of The Gilda Stories

"GRACE PERIOD assembles a story of loss, of grief, of life as beads on a necklace - each small triumph, echoing memory, and unexpected revelation a gleaming jewel, strung together with warmth and soul." —Liz Tigelaar, television writer/producer, Little Fires Everywhere and Tiny Beautiful Things

"Elisabeth Nonas has fashioned a heart-breaking yet oddly delightful and funny story about one of life's most poignant passages. This is unpredictable storytelling at its best—the unfolding of a life passage that every reader will understand and find both painfully wistful and hilariously entertaining. The author takes us inside the bewildered, mixed-up, and romantic mind of a woman who is thrown heart first into the chaotic universe we all traverse. I couldn't put it down." —Philip Himberg, former executive director, MacDowell

After 25 years, how do you rebuild your life?Hannah's wife has died unexpectedly.Just as 70-year-old writing professor Hannah Greene walks into her retirement party, she's called to the ER because Grace, her wife of 25 years, has been in what turns out to be a fatal car accident. This was definitely not part of the plan the two had for their lives, especially since Grace was ten years younger than Hannah. The plan had been for Hannah to join her art history professor wife on a sabbatical trip to Europe. Grace would do research, and Hannah would figure out what she wanted to do in her retirement.

How does an independent, feisty lesbian adjust to both her suddenly widowed and newly retired life? How can she survive the loss of the spouse who statistically should have survived her?

Grace Period tackles these questions head-on in an intimate, witty portrayal of a woman grappling with the new and unexpected turn her life has taken. It is a tale of love, loss, and survival.

286 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 9, 2024

Reviews

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was sceptical about a book that was entirely about the death of a spouse and grieving after the event but in Elisabeth Noans' hands, as Alison Bechdel says, "I didn't want it to end".

Seventy-year-old Hannah is at her retirement party from a successful career as a screenwriter slash writing professor when she gets the news that her spouse, Grace, has passed away en route to her retirement party. With Grace being a decade younger, Hannah has always thought she would be the one to pass on first and leave Grace grieving and dealing with how to move on. She now finds herself dealing step by step with grief, an emptiness without her wife and career, and well-meaning friends who keep trying to drag her back into taking care of herself and existing in the world when all she wants to do is wallow a bit.

This is an incredible book about ageing, grief, discovering parts of your spouse that you didn't know about when working through her things, and slowly deciding what to do with yourself and your life now that you are retired and a widow. I loved the side characters in this book (all queer women) and how they float in and out of the narrative and even take up some space, such as "The Girls", but never overshadow Hannah's own journey in getting reinvested in the world and finding a new way of living in it without her partner of twenty-five years.

I'm so glad I read this book to end my November 2024 reads because it tops them all (35 books) and I hope more people, especially queer women, give this a read because it's relatable, engaging, and perfectly paced.

[Alinne Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand now that there is no closure for this loss.

[Marni Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was okay. I wish it was a little more..oomph? it didn’t make me cry, but it was a decent read

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elisabeth Nonas' novel of grief is an engaging first-person account of a screenwriter-professor who finds herself unexpectedly widowed by her younger partner, a trailblazing academic who examined the relationship between classical art and video games. The inciting incident takes place shortly before the book's first pages, so the drama in Nonas' novel is made of smaller, significant incidents that accompany grappling with an unforeseen loss of epic magnitude: the posthumous discovery of an affair; the arrival of two houseguests forgotten in the aftermath of the tragedy; a first Fourth of July party without her lover; the daily struggles to exist in a lesbian widowhood that was never imagined beforehand. Nonas has a gentle touch and a kindly corny sense of humor; she's not afraid to engage in silly wordplay as she charts the fever chart of emotions that follows a life-altering sorrow. "Grace Period" instead relates a constant ache. It's as if the central death of the loved one is like an unrelenting weight that slows down its protagonist and forces her to reflect on a relationship that now lacks the security that had previously held it together.