NONFICTION - May 2, 1993

LANDSCAPE WITHOUT GRAVITY: A Memoir of Grief by Barbara Lazear Ascher (Delphinium Books: $20; 158 pp.). Around Christmastime, a terminally ill woman hangs wreaths and stockings for her children, decorates the tree, prepares the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and hands out the presents. At 8 p.m., after new dolls have been dressed and toy trucks driven and children bathed and tucked in for the night, she says, “I think I’ll go to the hospital now.” She dies at midnight.

Barbara Lazear Ascher--a baby boomer who, like so many in her generation, lost touch with her kin when she went off to claim her freedom--cites this story as an example of the mysterious foresight of the dying. But to those who still living in the tightly-knit family, there’s nothing mysterious about it. The woman was able to let go of life because at that moment she was especially secure of her place within it. Far less secure, Ascher has a much harder time when she discovers that at age 31, her gay brother has succumbed to AIDS. In this intense memoir, she tries to recall his place in her family (“He was Henry James’ European visiting Massachusetts. We were Massachusetts.”) in order to regain her own sense of place.

At first, Ascher’s distance from him and her feelings suggest that she has been unsuccessful; typically, for instance, she reports that her “sobs . . . seemed to come from someone else.” Eventually, though, we see that Ascher has developed genuine wisdom about when to march on alone (She admires the antarctic explorer who likes a day “cold enough to keep the ice firm, but sunny enough to show the way.”) and when to give in to loss: Advising her about a strong undertow in the ocean, her husband counsels, “Should you ever get caught in it . . . just ride it and eventually you’ll be put back on the beach--maybe half a mile away, but there’s no danger as long as you don’t fight it.”