Digging In

Nyhan (All the Good Parts) transforms nervous energy into healing, productive work in this endearingly quirky novel about a woman grappling with the loss of her husband and trying to keep her life together for the sake of her son, Trey. Once taking great pride in her appearance, career, and home, Paige Moresco let herself go after her husband died in a car accident two years earlier. Now her wardrobe, her position at the boutique ad agency where she works, her relationship with Trey, and, especially, her shabby yard are all in need of desperate repair. Frustrated with the neighbors’ complaints about her yard, she takes a shovel and begins digging up the weeds. Discovering how good it feels to work out her frustration in the dirt, she digs each night until she has dug up her entire yard—to the chagrin of the entire neighborhood. With the help of new friends, Paige decides to turn her yard into a garden and, in the process, begins to heal herself as well. Emotional yet funny, the book will have readers rooting for Paige and her new tomato plants the whole way. Confronting grief, change, and a new way of being, Nyhan’s lovely story captures the rejuvenating power of hard work that can start right in the backyard. (Apr.)