"Shields' lucid prose succinctly illuminates the larger context of Jaffe's life... It's even better at capturing the small picture."—Timothy Hunter, Cleveland Plain Dealer In Handbook for Drowning, Walter Jaffe grows up in a family obsessed with social justice; Walter fixates on his own mortality. The novel's pointillistic structure reflects the gap between the grief Walter feels for his dying mother and the impersonal rationality he's been taught to practice."