The Good Death of Kate Montclair

When the terminally ill Kate Montclair reunites with her old friend, Adele Schraeder, at a death discussion group at her local coffee shop, she has no idea that, with Adele’s help, she will soon be secretly planning her “Deathday,” at which she will break Virginia law with an assisted suicide.

Yet the imperious Adele Schraeder is not the only person Kate reunites with at the Death Symposium. Also present is Benedict Aquila, a mutual friend of Kate’s and Adele’s from their days as young schoolteachers in Rome. And then there is the strange street woman in her 30s, sitting in the corner drawing, who clearly has mental health issues. Who is she? She is the Ariadne’s thread that will eventually lead Kate on a journey back through the years to her youth in Rome, to the love affair Kate had with a married man named Michael Cody, and to the catastrophe that took his life.