The mayor of Heaven

the long version

The Mayor of Heaven begins as four friends prepare for a party saluting Claire Morganstern - charismatic, dynamic, and dead of breast cancer at 45. Claire's partner Lucy and her friends Rasheda, Jane, and Harry struggle to reshape their lives, their allegiances, and their expectations as they learn to live with her absence. Lucy discovers that grief is a new form of gravity that alters the world. Rasheda reaches for a definition of family that both transcends tradition and includes her husband and little girl, while Harry wonders how he can continue to love women in the midst of this epidemic. Jane fights to balance a new passion with an old secret. And Claire - who has been dead six months when the book begins - still manages to pull the strings.