Iris's

The final blow came in Vail, the one that sent them packing for Steamboat: they ran out of Iris's savings, which had allowed them to live high on the hog lo those blessed years.

Sunshine Loop Marcelle Heath 2011

It still combines a kind of grindhouse blood so red... but in some cases, a repulsive brownish red, among the cheap plaid suits and Iris's hot pants, and remains so recklessly real and beautifully composed all at once.

Kim Morgan: Pilgrim, Cowboy, Indian: Taxi Driver Kim Morgan 2011

A year after Iris's birth, the family moved to the Midwest, where Ying-Ying and Shau-Jin began teaching at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Hard Work, True Grit Mary Kissel 2011

He imagined taking Iris's hand and whispering, Remember when we got lost for five hours outside Buffalo, Wyoming and hadn't eaten all day and almost ate berries we knew to be poisonous?

Sunshine Loop Marcelle Heath 2011

And there with that bright red -- Matthew's red polished fingernail clutching Iris's hair.

Kim Morgan: Pilgrim, Cowboy, Indian: Taxi Driver Kim Morgan 2011

It still combines a kind of grindhouse blood so red... but in some cases, a repulsive brownish red, among the cheap plaid suits and Iris's hot pants, and remains so recklessly real and beautifully composed all at once.

Kim Morgan: Pilgrim, Cowboy, Indian: Taxi Driver Kim Morgan 2011

"The Woman Who Could Not Forget" ultimately isn't a sad story, but rather a celebration of Iris's remarkable life.

Hard Work, True Grit Mary Kissel 2011

Iris's sudden death was the catalyst for "The Woman Who Could Not Forget," a biographical memoir written by her mother, Ying-Ying Chang, who says she had to set the record straight and "present Iris" as "only we, her family, knew her."

Hard Work, True Grit Mary Kissel 2011

And there with that bright red -- Matthew's red polished fingernail clutching Iris's hair.

Kim Morgan: Pilgrim, Cowboy, Indian: Taxi Driver Kim Morgan 2011

But there's the rub -- or the rube: Her counterpart, Jane, the groom's mother, is a flinty Mainer who used to clean Iris's house and grits her teeth at the professor's obnoxious presumptuousness.

Ayelet Waldman's 'Red Hook Road,' reviewed by Ron Charles 2010