As he moves toward old age, David Cross finds himself living an unexpected new life. Having lost his wife, Nancy, to illness, and retired from his job as a prominent television news anchor, David is working out in the gym and becoming very thin. His children, Ed and Lucy, embarking on careers and lives of their own, suspect him of being on the lookout for a new woman. He cannot tell them that he is, in some ways, happier than he was before Nancy died.As Ed and his dancer wife, Rosalie, struggle to conceive a child and Lucy seeks refuge from a chaotic ex-boyfriend, all of them are now forced to survive their own choices without the woman who was the center of the family. And when David goes to see his estranged brother deep in the African desert, he will come to an unexpected and life-affirming epiphany.Filled with rich characterization, warm humor, and shocking surprises, To Heaven by Water is a work of great subtlety, a moving novel from a keen observer of life as we live it now. Read Less