Ostensibly, this is a story about grieving. Lauren is a body artist, meaning that she expresses her thoughts and feelings on stage through a variety of body appearances and positions. Her expressions reflect her extraordinary sensitivity to the world around her.When Lauren's husband, Rey, takes his life in suicide, what is left of their relationship, like her body work, assumes a visual expression in the form of a boy-man of indeterminate age, who lives in the past, present and future all at once. The image brings to her remnants of Rey, of herself, and of Laren-Rey (their relationship). Mere remnants remain because Rey is dead, and life's full richness with him is no longer possible.The boy-man is a tangible, seemingly real image, just as her body works are real to Lauren when she performs. This is not a ghost story. Rather, Lauren is grieving. Her grief takes this boy-man shape, helping Lauren to cope with Rey's death and her feelings about the suicide, about Rey, about their relationship, and about how she will express herself in her art.We all are haunted by those in our past, not by ghosts, but by our memories and remnants of our feelings. DeLillo's novel is an extension of these common feelings, as seen through the eyes of a most expressive protagonist. We all live simultaneously in the past (our memories, our character bases), the present, and the future (our hopes, fears, plans, dreams). All of this brews within us as we journey through our life's drama and trivia. Capturing such normal thought processes in such a creative way poetically blends the conscious and subconscious. The book is not just about grieving and being haunted by those we have loved, but about how we pass through, regard, and express our time alive.