Ashes for Salmon

"You're going to have a lot of work to do when I'm gone," Nick Rowswell's mother tells him in the last days of her life. She's right. In a world where millions can die at the touch of a button, erasing one woman's presence from the world is remarkably complicated.

As Nick begins the process of wrapping up his mother's life-her physical remains, her worldly possessions, her administrative existence-he realizes that he never truly knew her.

We know our parents only through the stories they tell-the carefully chosen and well-doctored anecdotes that show them in a positive or humorous light. We never know the truth. Nick sets out to find that truth and to discover who his mother was when she wasn't being a parent. In doing so, he takes a bittersweet journey through his family's past, and comes to understand how that past affects his own future.

Funny, poignant, and revealing, "Ashes for Salmon" is both a memoir and a revealing look at how we handle death. We're driven to give meaning to life, even when our loved ones may end their journey in the belly of a prize Scottish salmon.