Canadian novelist Barfoot (Dancing in the Dark
) may finally get the recognition she deserves for this brilliantly conceived, masterfully realized 10th novel. Nora, a successful sculptor in her late 30s, wakes up one morning to find her custom furniture-designer husband, Philip Lawrence, 46, dead beside her. The rest of the novel simply follows her and the rest of the household, verité-style, as they make decisions and try to internalize what has happened over the course of that day and the two that follow. The rest of the household consists of Beth, a wispy former model who moved in to serve as Nora's muse over the past few years, and Sophie, a fleshy economist who burned out as an aid worker, and has been holed up with the other three as caretaker and financial manager. Barfoot makes the most of this uncomfortable ménage without overplaying her hand a single time: yes, Philip and Sophie were sleeping together, and yes, it's even possible that Beth poisoned Philip in order to get with Nora. Barfoot alternates among the three women's points of view with comic but never trivializing adroitness, and expertly spins out their backstories and recent lives together. The book is set in an English West Country town (with flashbacks to London), and there's a nice subplot concerning Nora's controversial use of religious imagery. But the real fireworks are in the minute explorations of this closed set of unorthodox relationships, all brought to a finish in a short coda set a year after Philip's death. Coming upon this novel is a fine piece of luck indeed. (Mar.)
