Powerful, thoughtful, and sensitive, emotional all at once.

I can’t seem to want to put it down. I’m really enjoying it…. A very easy read on deep subjects.

The author writes with touching awareness about her struggle to rebuild her life following the sudden death of her husband. Sensitive, engaging & most importantly helpful for those facing similar issues.

This is to let you know how much I loved your memoir…. I could not put it down. I drank you page after page. Such a wonder – you are. In a world of self-hating people, you stand away from these – you scream out the importance of loving oneself. You master the aphorisms – and the similes. But somehow you keep it all very close to the heart, the tangible world. You are the best writer in this country…. Everyone should be reading your memoir. Keeping a copy in their coat pocket. I raise my champagne glass to you. Auguri.

Melfi is interested in the metaphysical side of human existence, the difficulties of establishing a coherent feminine identity, cultural dislocation, and the artist’s attempt to create a new reality.

[In the Backyard] is both moving, witty, at times wildly funny, and sharply observant…. All in all, a tour-de-force of a unique literary work.

Melfi … thrives as a powerful force in the Canadian literary landscape, exposing readers to images, ideas and conceptions of reality we could otherwise never have imagined.

In the Backyard is written with humor… and with feeling.

The Montreal writer’s memoir traverses 10 years, beginning when she is 50 and lamenting the physical depredations of aging (“I am not pleased with God’s handiwork”). Fortunately, her “in-house therapist,” her psychologist husband, offers bane for her discontent (a sense of humour, or the ability to fake it, being key). But then he is diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, which requires her to revise her chief grievance: “Death is the enemy; old age, a dear friend.” This is a clarifying memoir, a tonic for women coming to grips with love, loss and mortality.

With a title like In the Backyard: Relearning the Art of Aging, Dying and Making Love, who wouldn’t want to read it?