In a curious and visually unique combination of words by former New York Times reporter Black and page designs (“visualization”) by illustrator Lehrer, this book portrays the author’s experiences dealing with grief after his mother’s unexpected death. The minimal text Black provides is scattered sparingly across the book’s pages, often with just a single word on a page, accompanied by both Lehrer’s simple illustrations and vast swaths of empty space. “I was looking for a new way to write, a way for words to carry the full weight of their meaning,” Black states in the book’s afterword. “Neither established forms of poetry nor prose but something different.” The author’s approach takes the form of single lines describing some aspect of grieving, sometimes spread over multiple pages. The phrase “I am still picking up” ranges across two pages, for instance, followed by “the pieces one by one” over two more, supplemented by various squiggles, lines, crescents, dots, and exclamation points provided by Lehrer. At various points, Black draws on some of his history as a journalist, as when he recounts his time reporting from the Middle East and remembers “a woman slain by a stray bullet while hanging laundry out to dry.” These memories are interspersed with moments as rock-bottom simple as a two-page spread bearing the legend “pain.” “The geometry of loss,” Black writes, “is a circle that’s never complete.” The intensely personal nature of the text is affecting throughout; when Black confesses bald truths like “I wish that I could rewrite these memories,” many readers who’ve experienced life-altering grief will nod in understanding. The book’s final pages, which include actual photos and reproductions of old letters and handwritten notes from the author’s mother, deliver a strong emotional impact, making the lost one feel very present.