Young Widower: A Memoir (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)
Grief in all its nuanced complexity is explored in this devastatingly beautiful memoir of love and loss. After witnessing the death of his young wife in a brutally bizarre fashion—she was mauled by a bear while the couple was hiking in the Carpathian Mountains—Evans revisits his marriage, recalling their time together, examining their relationship from a variety of different angles, and analyzing his ever-evolving response to her tragic death. After meeting during a stint in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh, they taught together in Chicago, attended graduate school in Florida, and moved to Romania, where Katie, a public health worker, was managing an HIV/AIDS education program. While the haunting account of the day Katie died is especially riveting, it is the unfolding and cathartic grieving process that underpins and elevates this heartbreaking tale. --Margaret Flanagan