Jonathan Tropper, the internationally bestselling author of the novels Plan B, The Book of Joe, Everything Changes, How to Talk to a Widower, This Is Where I Leave You and One Last Thing Before I Go, is one of the Shelf staff's favorite authors, and we have been eagerly awaiting the film version of This Is Where I Leave You (Plume, $16 paperback), released today. 
The movie trailer promises all the wit mixed with family tension we've come to expect from his books, and Jason Bateman is the perfect actor to bring to life one of Tropper's deftly limned male characters.
In How to Talk to a Widower, Doug Parker is widowed at 29, stuck in suburbia with overwhelming grief and an equally grieving 15-year-old stepson, Russ. Our review said, "How Doug and Russ come to terms with [death and sorrow and rage] unfolds with humor and sadness in this marvelous novel, where grief is examined in its myriad forms. A bittersweet story well told with depth and charm." We also reviewed One Last Thing Before I Go: "Tropper... scores again [with] a sharp and very funny study in dysfunctionality and middle-age crisis in a time of economic chaos and collapsing hope."
In our interview with him, Tropper said that he's "always created characters for whom redemption was a distinct possibility. [In One Last Thing] I wanted to write about someone who is already past the point where he can correct his mistakes, [and] see what redemption looks like when it doesn't physically fix anything." All of the families he's written about have been called "dysfunctional" in reviews, but he has generally disagreed. My feeling is, any family in which the family members will be there for each other at those key moments of need is not a dysfunctional family, no matter how much they may not get along. He wants people to be both moved and entertained, "to reflect on their own lives and relationships." We expect the new movie to do just that. --Marilyn Dahl, editor, Shelf Awareness for Readers