When Oliver Desmarais, a professor at a conservative New England college, drops dead of an aneurysm, the story follows his wife Virginia as she copes with being a single mother and widow.

I wanted to like this story, but it fell flat for me because I found very little in the story to hold my interest. The book lacked character development, and the plot was predictable.

The author gives readers a glimpse of sexism in the 1970’s New England academia, which is why I stuck with it.