After a call from an emergency doctor, nothing in the life of bestselling author Geraldine Brooks is the same as it was: Her husband, author Tony Horwitz, collapsed on a sidewalk and died. The two spent thirty years together, writing, surrounded by their friends and family, on Martha's Vineyard. Brooks forces himself to do what has to be done now, works through lists, works. But without mourning the room, the gaping wound inflicted on her by the loss of Tony cannot close. Three years later, Brooks booked a flight to an island off the coast of Australia. In the untouched landscape, she finally comes to rest and can allow her grief. Little by little, she finds ways and rituals to heal, accept Tony's death and find her way back to life herself. Biography (Geraldine Brooks) Geraldine Brooks, born in Sydney in 1955, traveled for eleven years as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal to various Islamic countries, including Bosnia, Somalia and the Middle East. She has received several awards for her reports on the Palestinian intifada, the Iran-Iraq conflict and the Gulf War. Geraldine Brooks received the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 and was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 2010.