C.S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis, or Jack as he was called by friends, is both the narrator and the main character in this book as he sets out to turn his highly logical, well-read, and famously philosophical, introspective intellect to the subject of mourning the loss of his wife. He says he wanted to create a sort of map to describe the state as one watching it objectively and learning the pattern it followed. As a very analytical man, perhaps this was a way of creating his own therapy, becoming a rational observer of a state that his intellect had very little power to control. He is vulnerable, at times even irrational, and so honest about the thoughts, questions, frustrations and fears that come to mind in the days and weeks following her death. Both of Lewis' parents died of cancer, and cancer is what took his wife...