Necessary Madness - Hardcover

Not that age should matter in the grand scheme of things, but Jenn Crowell was barely 18 when she sold this first novel to her publishers. Unlike much fiction by very young people, however, Necessary Madness does not trade on hipness, teenage angst or underage promiscuity. The novel is the story of 30-year-old Gloria Burgess coming to grips with the premature death from cancer of a beloved husband. Kirkus Reviews hailed Necessary Madness (set in England, though Crowell is American) for its fully developed characters and maturity of content.

From her first poignant sentences, Jenn Crowell beckons the reader into Gloria Burgess's private world. After a scant eight years of marriage, Gloria's beloved husband succumbs to leukemia, leaving her alone with a son to bring up in an adopted country. The madness of grief is a constant, voracious temptation she must withstand, for her child's sake not her own. To accomplish this, Gloria delves into the lessons from the past and her parents' failed relationship. Her father was forever inconsolable over his dead first love, her mother bitter at giving up her ambitions for a man incapable of loving her. Between her father's clinging, drowning despair and her mother's emotional abandonment is a balance that Gloria struggles to find. And eventually she discovers ways to reinvent herself, to find happiness once again, and to bring peace back to the tumult of her life.