This is a book completely unlike anything I've ever read. Though labeled a novel it is not that in any traditional sense. The rhythm of the book is reflected in its title. It is lyrical and poignant, with the narrator's husband at the edge of the narrative. It recalled an experimental film I saw in a class years ago, Jonas Mekas' Lost, Lost, Lost. Hardwick speaks a great deal about faithless lovers, long gone housekeepers and their failed loves, while keeping her own primary relationship at a distance.

The title of this book is calling to me. It begs to be read in the middle of the night.

For NYRB Book Club discussion, this has been on my TBR awhile.

The narrator, a woman named Elizabeth like the author, who has lived a life similar to that of the author, has landed as "a broken old woman in a squalid nursing home." She chooses to remember people and places from her past, from the Lexington, Kentucky, of her youth, to the cities of her adulthood, Boston, Amsterdam, New York, and put her memories into a type of order. But she omits most of what would provide the reader with a solid ground for understanding how and why she's come to this and what has happened to those who would have been at the center of her life, other than that they have died.