A taut, bighearted new novel from bestselling and award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about a daughter's relationship with her larger-than-life mother--and all that is left behind as one generation moves to the next Over the course of one weekend in London, a woman, 'trying to decide what I thought about my life,' winds up wrestling with the memory of her mother. Her mother--who had also loved to visit London--died ten months earlier, but her presence is in no way diminished by her death. In The Hero of This Book, Elizabeth McCracken tracks a daughter's relationship with her larger-than-life mother. At every turn the narrator is confronted by the past--remembered conversations, the days the two of them spent wandering through museums or going to the theater--playing alongside questions of the future: back in New England, the family home is now for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed. But the messy detritus of an ordinary life is not all that remains. Visiting