In her new novel The Obituary Writer, Ann Hood offers parallel but converging tales of two women.  Vivien becomes an obituary writer after losing her lover in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake; and Claire, a former TWA flight attendant, is a young mother working on the 1960s Presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy.  Separated by time, these two women struggle with the meaning of love and loss, the bonds of women to their children, and with making their way in a world offering tantalizing glimpses of freedom.   With these two beautifully drawn characters, Hood explores the universal struggles of women balancing their own needs with the demands placed on them in their roles as lovers, wives, and mothers. (Recommended by Adult Services Librarian Dorothy Pawlowski.)