K.D. Girsch has created that elusive holy grail of literary novels: a story that captures in simple but elegant prose the complexity of human emotions and relationships. Her protagonist Ellie suffers devastating losses and struggles to come to terms with what life can possibly mean when, as she says, “Everyone who loves me dies.”

But as excruciating as Ellie’s grief and despair are, they are not the whole story. With painstaking care, the support of a new love, and the wisdom of a compassionate therapist, Ellie begins to heal and rebuild her life. A sliver of hope enlightens her darkness. Beyond denial and distraction, she finds ways of integrating her losses into the new future she is creating for herself.

I do have two minor criticisms, but they may be too idiosyncratic to be entirely valid. Rage is conspicuously absent from Ellie’s panoply of emotions. I would have expected Ellie to be furious at what Camus called “the benign indifference of the universe,” an indifference that could allow such tragedies to occur. Instead, she seems almost too stoic.

My other observation is that the novel does not seem to be as anchored to place as it is to person and time. We know that Ellie’s story happens in the Finger Lakes region of upper New York, New York City, London, and on a Yorkshire farm, but the descriptions of those places are so sparse I felt I had to invent them myself. I may be too cinematically oriented, but at times I felt the characters were acting before a “green screen,” with the environment to be added later by the reader.

That said, I don’t wish to quibble, and I cannot diminish Ms. Girsch’s accomplishment. She has written a lucid, luminous novel, and I give it five enthusiastic, well-earned stars. It is truly excellent—and just short of transcendent. Here’s the link: Coming to Terms