Nobody's favorite movie is some dark, dysfunctional slasher story. Everybody's favorite song is a sentimental song. So why all of a sudden is it bad to be sentimental in books?

The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads -none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of - unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn't get enough.

My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce.

The backside of a mountain is a fight against human nature. You have to care as much about yourself on the way down as you did on the way up.

It's nice that you spend a day with your mother,' she said. "Children should do it more often.

This is a story about a family and, as there is a ghost involved, you might cal it a ghost story. But every family is a ghost story. The dead sit at out tables long after they have gone.

We all lose somebody we care about and want to find some comforting way of dealing with it, something that will give us a little closure, a little peace.