SATURDAY NIGHT WIDOWS

How to cope with tragedy with the help of good friends.

"I didn't seem to fit anyone's definition of a proper widow, least of all my own,” writes former Newsday writer Aikman, "you know, the Ingmar Bergman version, gloomy, pathetic, an all-around, ongoing downer." Five years after her husband died after a long bout with cancer, the author realized she wasn't ready to quit living just yet and surmised that there must be others just like her. She gathered together five other women, all unknown to each other, and they formed a support group—not just to move past their grief, but hopefully, on to new and richly fulfilling lives. In this debut memoir, Aikman brings together the sad yet optimistic stories of these women, who were widowed at far too early an age. Faced with paying mortgages on their own, raising small children or not having someone to eat dinner with, these women managed to move beyond the initial shock and were ready to take new steps toward a different way of being. Meeting once a month for a year, "on Saturday night, the most treacherous shoal for new widows, where untold spirits have sunk into gloom," the group tried cooking together, going to an art museum, a day at a spa and other activities. Engaging and entertaining but not maudlin, Aikman shows a side of life that many readers probably don't think about.

A compassionate narrative about how one group of friends helped each other thrive after the deaths of their spouses.