Pack Up the Moon

Grieving widower Joshua reads letters left to him by his late wife. He’s a medical device engineer who feels guilty that he couldn’t save his 28-year-old wife Lauren from her terminal illness. Flashbacks from Lauren’s point of view, as she tries to make each day count and grapples with her mortality, along with Joshua’s memories of their happiness, attempt to show life’s polarity, its terror and bliss. But it doesn’t strike the right balance of happy and sad; the narrative skews heavily toward sorrow. Higgins (Always the Last To Know) turns away from her books’ usual story lines (independent women and their relationships) and instead focuses on Joshua as he tries to survive grief and finds direction and strength in Lauren’s letters. Higgins writes that Joshua has autism spectrum disorder, a fact that doesn’t much enter into his characterization in this novel.