Those We Love Most
Woodruff, who is married to Bob Woodruff, the newsman who suffered a traumatic brain injury while covering the war in Iraq, brings her own experience in dealing with sudden tragedy to bear in her first novel (after Perfectly Imperfect, 2009, a collection of essays). Maura Corrigan’s settled suburban life changes in an instant when her eldest son, nine-year-old James, is hit by a car. Reeling from a welter of emotions, including guilt that she was texting instead of keeping an eye on her son, Maura feels too overwhelmed to try to deal with the distance in her marriage as her husband copes with the tragedy by spending evenings at the local watering hole with his college chums. Meanwhile, her parents must confront the rift in their own marriage when evidence of her father’s years-long affair comes to light. Woodruff is surprisingly subtle in her nuanced portraits of the complexity of marriage, the far from well-intentioned people who seem to thrive on tragedy, and the great struggle to find meaning in life. Candid and heartfelt, this is sure to please fans of women’s fiction. --Joanne Wilkinson