Helen Humphreys' brother, Martin, was her closest ally and friend.

Two years ago, he suddenly became ill and died in just a few months. In the year that followed, Humphreys wrote this intense and affecting memoir. Though the book is deeply personal, it is also, inescapably, about the devastating events that we all experience.

As the year goes on, Humphreys begins to restructure her life.

She absorbs the seasons, landscapes, she gets a new dog, plants fruit trees. And she tells this story: moving fluidly between stories of childhood and adulthood, from life to death and its aftermath, she describes her loss, and how she has come to terms with grief.

Like Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, True Story is articulate, loving and exquisitely crafted.

It will make you catch your breath with recognition and sorrow.