Gus In Bronze

(Knopf 1977, Houghton Mifflin/Mariner Books, 1999)

Strong, lovely, vibrant Augusta - Gus - married to a man she adores and mother of three young children, is dying of cancer. Gus In Bronze is the beautifully told story of her last four weeks, illuminating the sad and comic ways she and those she loves grapple with unthinkable loss. Bribing the gods for more time, her family encourages her to agree to sit for a portrait in bronze, to be sculpted by the art teacher who has captured her daughter's young heart. In the course of the sittings, Gus to her astonishment finds solace, absurdity, inspiration, meaning. This remarkable novel is about a remarkable woman, about a family bound by intense feeling, about adolescence, about doctors and family jokes and ordering groceries. It is a novel about coping and about hope. It is a book about love.