A life hangs in the balance of memory in this poignant, witty and "effective feminine counterpoint to . . . Philip Roth's 2006 novel, 'Everyman' " by the award-winning author ( The Washington Post). Born on the same day as Queen Elizabeth II, Canadian Georgina Danforth Witley is one of ninety-nine lucky Commonwealth residents invited to Her Majesty's eightieth birthday lunch at Buckingham Palace. But en route to the airport to board the plane for London, Georgina's car slips off the road and plunges into a thickly wooded ravine. Thrown from the car, injured, and unable to move, she must rely on her full store of family memories, her no-nonsense wit, and a recitation of the names of the bones in her body—an exercise from childhood—to remind her that she is still very much alive. But what has the entirety of her life meant? As Georgina lies stranded and helpless, she reflects on her eighty years as a daughter, mother, sister, wife, and widow, on lost loves and secrets, and on painful moments of the past she struggles not to recall. With this exquisite, suspenseful, and surprising tale of the staying power of family through time and memory, "Itani exposes the richness and depth beneath the surface of one ordinary life" ( The New Yorker).
