So here I am, upstairs in my parents’ house, having finished earlier today The Young Widow’s Book of Home Improvement. Recently I learned that there’s a novel floating around with the title of The Household Guide to Dying, which will probably be published in 2008 like mine. The subject of loss is evidently in the cultural firmament; how strange it is that a universal experience can be packaged in such a way that it will beget articles about a trend.