Minus Me
by Mameve Medwed
Her life turned upside down by a grim diagnosis, a small-town Maine woman sets about writing a "How To" life manual for her handsome yet hapless husband in a novel Elinor Lipman (Good Riddance, On Turpentine Lane) calls "smart, funny-quirky, and so very satisfying."Annie and her charming but comically helpless childhood sweetheart Sam are the owners and operators of Annie's, a gourmet sandwich shop, home to the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwich—their "nutritionally challenged continual source of income and marital harmony and local fame."But into their charmed life comes the grim medical diagnosis for Annie—and the overwhelming challenge of finding a way to help Sam go on without her. Annie decides to leave Sam step-by-step instructions about how to live his life, and even plans for her own replacement in his heart and their bed. All is going well until the unexpected appearance of Ursula, Annie's local celebrity of a...