The short stories in Helen Hudson's "Death of a Mother-in-Law" present characters struggling to connect—from a son reckoning with the legacy of his deceased mother, to a woman in a retirement community trying to win over the woman who cleans her room, to a young boy trying to understand the distant, blind minister who is his father. The stories explore strained efforts to bridge racial divides and fraught attempts to find closure in the face of death. Each, whether comedic or dramatic, is enlivened by Hudson's gift for detail and remarkable turn of phrase.