"Heritagefest July 18-21, 1985, New Ulm, Minnesota" -- cover.
Summary:
A Widow's Guide to Becoming a Handyman is part grief memoir, part immigrant story, and part how-to-guide. This is a story of premature death and emotional wreckage that uses the narrator's old house as its foundation. Grief is as palpable as a hammer hitting a nail and doesn't come at all the way a reader might expect as the narrator methodically cares for her quirky old farmhouse's many needs following her husband's sudden death: a leaky roof, rotten windows, mold and frozen pumps and pipes. The narrator repeatedly tries and fails to order grief into a linear process with five distinct stages, but instead finds grief to be as disorganized and messy as the garage and sheds full of tools left by her deceased husband.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.