How could so much consciousness be packed into such a small object?.

... [an] exquisite, lightning-bolt bright, zigzagging, and striking musing on the self, life, death, and the endlessly provocative jumble of the sublime and the absurd, the comic and the tragic..

... profound.

... lithe and cerebral.

Reading and rereading novelist Kathryn Davis’ new memoir, Aurelia, Aurélia, I felt revisited by this crystal-clear realization — over and over again.

Davis’ memoir gives art equal weight to real-life events as she reflects on the work of Virginia Woolf, Ingmar Bergman, Beethoven, Peggy Lee, and Grace Paley to find deeper meaning in her experience. By grasping at art to give a sense of purpose to her life, Davis highlights the pain and absurdity of being newly widowed..