As Marilyn and David Frankel prepare for their annual Fourth of July family get-together at their Summer home in the Berkshires, they realize that this reunion will be both an ending and a beginning. Their son, Leo, a journalist, was killed while on an assignment in Iraq. The family gathering this year is to include a special memorial service for the lost son, and behind the scenes, the decades-long Frankel marriage has unraveled. How to inform their three daughters and the other family members is weighing heavily on the Frankels, and this worry is combined with their grief for their son and a certain bewilderment of how their lives came to this point. Each of their daughters is struggling with her own issues, and as is often very true when family members pass away, painful personal matters come into the light. Marilyn's focus on her son, and David's devotion to their daughters are part of what has created the distance in their crumbling marriage. The loss of an adult child is heart-wrenching and so emotionally confusing--that child should survive you, not the other way around. In "The World Without You", Joshua Henkin poignantly examines the inner workings of a still-grieving family, at varying stages of their own personal lives, and each with a very different level of their observance of their religious faith. While the Frankels may lead lives which are unlike yours or mine, their sense of loss, and their search for happiness are universal. Families are complex, no matter how the surface appears, and sometimes a great loss removes a scab and lets blood flow. Then comes the time to heal.