Is it true that death is only hard on the living? We’ve all heard of the afterlife review, where loved ones see the impacts of their actions on the lives they left behind. What if the grief that haunts the living is not an indictment of guilt but an invitation to participate in this forum?

This is the imagined framework of The Forum, a dialogue-driven memoir written from the perspective of the afterlife. It charts the 40-year love affair between a swashbuckling Brooklyn raconteur named Ray Mazzara, and Gigi, a scrawny and bookish suburban kid reeling from the death of her 36-year-old father.

From her spiral into addiction, an adolescence spent spinning through the revolving doors of mental hospitals, and her ultimate recovery, Gigi’s single-minded obsession with Ray is the lens through which she filters every experience. Separated for more than 20 years, Gigi and Ray reunite late in life. The love they forge is powerful enough to redeem the decades apart, but as Gigi struggles to define her future, Ray dies.

Anyone who’s suffered the anguish of loss and the longing to restore love after death will thrill to this tale of redemption. For all the heartache inherent in our flawed and imperfectly led lives, the truth revealed in The Forum is that where life ends, love lives on.

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