REVIEWED BY LISA KAY GREISSINGER
NOVEL
Three years ago Edelman, a publicist and widow living with her daughters in Montclair, N.J., made local news after she sent friends an e-mail promising a dream vacation to anyone who found her a husband. It didn't work, but it did give her material for this roman à clef. Trying to refashion a life after her husband's abrupt death, the book's heroine encounters a vastly changed dating landscape. From the vodka-drinking neighbor to the unfortunate online dating prospect who describes his post-prostate surgery issues as "like trying to shove a marshmallow into a piggy bank," her encounters ring awkward and true. Manless lacks the white-clad happy ending Edelman enjoyed earlier this year (she found her photographer husband all on her own), but it deftly chronicles the uncomfortable, funny and hopeful journey from happily married to unexpectedly single.
