Isabelle Day Refuses to Die of a Broken Heart

In Milwaukee, Isabelle Day had a house. And she had a father. This year, on Halloween, she has half of a house in Minneapolis, a mother at least as sad as she is, and a loss thats too hard to thinklet alone talkabout. Its the Midwest in the early 1960s, and dads just dont die . . . like that.

Hovering over Isabelles new world are the duplexs too-attentive landladies, Miss Flora (a lovely dried flower) and her sister Miss Dora (grim as roadkill), who dwell in a sea of memories and doilies; the gleefully demonic Sister Mary Mercy, who rules a school awash in cigarette smoke; and classmates steady Margaret and edgy Grace, who hold out some hope of friendship. As Isabelles first tentative steps carry her through unfamiliar territoryclassroom debacles and misadventures at home and beyond, time trapped in a storm-tossed cemetery and investigating an inhospitable hospitalshe begins to discover that, when it comes to pain and loss, she might actually be in good company.

In light of the elderly sisters lives, Grace and Margarets friendship, and her fathers memory, she just might find the heart and humor to save herself. With characteristic sensitivity and wit, Jane St. Anthony reveals how a girls life clouded with grief can also hold a world of promise.