Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character. Her story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her – in the summer of 1958 – Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life is the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. The book closes in 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow about to fall in love for the first time. Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing A Widow for One Year is a ribald and exotic love story of emotional force.