«A grieving person looks for dead things in nature. She listens to the whisperings of the pine tree tops, looks up in vain at an unusually bright star. She collects stones and seashells to the gravesite, she plants things, she picks away leaves, and won’t leave the headstone to rest under the snow. Despite all this searching, nature appears just as mute. The stone remains a stone.»

A young student grieves for her brother, taken by cancer, while the ecosystem collapses around her. The unthinkable happens when she loses her brother, and the sense that nothing is normal anymore is confirmed when eagles lose their habitats and start attacking humans, animals escape zoos in droves, and strange new weather phenomena arise. Furre writes thoughtfully, humorously, sorrowfully, and with great emotional and intellectual depth about what it means to lose a sibling and how grief manifests when it is given free rein.