Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. An enduring aspect of this story is the author's intimacy with the biology of kinship. She establishes the metaphorical heart at the center of a complex ecosystem in which love is water, light, and oxygen by weaving together the body and spirit so viscerally and so well that at times it will leave you wanting to forget where you end and someone else begins. Jennifer Futernick is most at home, and at her most eloquent, in noting the myriad ways that the heart extends its influence into every touch, look, thought, reply, every thing that matters.

"In this...