“I didn’t want this book to end…” —Alison Bechdel

After 25 years, how do you rebuild your life?

Just as 70-year-old writing professor Hannah Greene walks into her retirement party, she’s called to the ER because Grace, her wife of 25 years, has been in what turns out to be a fatal car accident. This was definitely not part of the plan the two had for their lives, especially since Grace was ten years younger than Hannah. The plan had been for Hannah to join her art history professor wife on a sabbatical trip to Europe. Grace would do research, and Hannah would figure out what she wanted to do in her retirement.

How does an independent, feisty lesbian adjust to both her suddenly widowed and newly retired life? How can she survive the loss of the spouse who statistically should have survived her?

Grace Period tackles these questions head-on in an intimate, witty portrayal of a woman grappling with the new and unexpected turn her life has taken. It is a tale of love, loss, and survival.

Praise for Grace Period

“What happens when your younger partner dies on her way to your retirement party? “Retirement, or grief?” the hapless, endearing protagonist of Grace Period must keep asking herself as she attempts to navigate her strange new life. That might not sound like the setup for an extremely funny novel, but trust me, in Elisabeth Nonas’ skilled hands, it is. A retired professor of screenwriting (like Nonas herself), Hannah jokes about whether the five stages of grief are the emotional equivalent of narrative structure, and tries to map her own progress according to the Hero’s Journey arc. But she can’t even manage to “Return with the Elixir.” As she mourns, though, a retrospective portrait of her rich relationship with Grace takes shape, and so does a vibrant picture of her community of friends and exes. I didn’t want this book to end, but of course, according to the rules of story structure, it had to. I just hope Nonas will write a sequel.”

—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

“If it’s possible for a novel about loss to be both meditative and laugh-out-loud funny Grace Period is it. Elisabeth Nonas expertly navigates around the dark space where a beloved used to be, until she lands us in the place where memory makes it possible to go on.”

—Jewelle Gomez, author of The Gilda Stories

“This brave, utterly beautiful book takes us onto the road all of us at some time must travel. We become Hannah’s closest companions on her journey through a deepening minutia of memories of Grace, the love of her life, on a wandering pathway without direction or signposts, yet leading, yes leading onto a first bridge that begins to integrate profound loss with ongoing life.”

—Katherine V. Forest, author of Delafield

“GRACE PERIOD assembles a story of loss, of grief, of life as beads on a necklace – each small triumph, echoing memory, and unexpected revelation a gleaming jewel, strung together with warmth and soul.”

—Liz Tigelaar, television writer/producer, Little Fires Everywhere and Tiny Beautiful Things

“Elisabeth Nonas has fashioned a heart-breaking yet oddly delightful and funny story about one of life’s most poignant passages. This is unpredictable storytelling at its best—the unfolding of a life passage that every reader will understand and find both painfully wistful and hilariously entertaining. The author takes us inside the bewildered, mixed-up, and romantic mind of a woman who is thrown heart first into the chaotic universe we all traverse. I couldn’t put it down.”

—Philip Himberg, former executive director, MacDowell