Second Lives

A deeply resonant novel delving into the complexities of grief, healing, and identity, following a foundering poet who returns from a writers retreat to discover that her life has been changed forever.

Lenore, a critically-acclaimed poet whose latest collection tanked after a lousy review, hasn’t left her home in over a year. Her only interactions with the outside world are with her overbearing sister whom she sends daily proof of life updates via completed Wordle challenges; the young woman who carelessly delivers her groceries to her doorstep; and the couple from LustforLife, a sex & travel vlog she watches.

To kickstart Lenore’s recovery, her sister signs her up for a litany of therapists and psychoanalysts, but Lenore rebuffs them all, until she meets a delightfully unconventional counselor who recommends that Lenore try to write a letter each day, in an effort to reclaim one of the things that gave her life a sense of purpose. Through these letters we learn Lenore’s life was falling to pieces long before the review, and that it will take a Herculean effort for her to get back to relatively normal.

Second Lives is a tender and patient novel that considers our unrelenting struggles with grief. Hosein recognizes that the world is filled with suffering. Much of which is out of our control. Cruel, arbitrary things happen every day. But human capacity always allows for connection, creation, community, and the eventual return to the things we once loved.