A Widow for One Year by John Irving has 4 characters who are writers, and we get excerpts or synopses of their books, interwoven with the real life events that inspired those stories. Also, there is a scene where a character tells his daughter a family story she never knew before that almost feels like a stand-alone novella. If you like Garp, you will love A Widow for One Year.

The carpet is held down by tack strips near the base boards, which are nailed to the floor. Those will need to be pried up, and there will be scars in the hardwood. The baseboards may have been replaced after the carpet went in, so the will float above a dirt-collecting crevice after you remove the carpet and tack strip.

Our house was built in 1957 with wool wall-to-wall in the living room, vinyl tin the kitchen, and oak plank in the bedrooms. At some point, it was given the same beige plush carpet everywhere but the kitchen and new vinyl in the kitchen.
As soon as we got the keys, we started pulling carpet up and got a quote to make it hardwood throughout. The finish in 2 of the bedrooms was in great shape and wouldn’t have needed refinishing, if the homeowner who got the whole house carpet deal hadn’t repainted without using drop cloths. Our only other surprise was that the front entryway was actually a slab foundation between the crawlspace under the master bedroom and the basement under the living room. The contractor said there was no practical way to level everything and out hardwood over the slab, so we tiled the entryway.

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