Lynn Caine (1924–1987)

Lynn Caine worked as a publicity manager at the publishing house Little, Brown and Company from 1967 to 1976. She is best known as the author of the best-selling book Widow, published in 1974, about her experiences following the death from cancer of her husband Martin Caine three years earlier. Lynn was left with a nine‐year‐old son, Jonny, a five‐year‐old daughter, Buffy, and no life insurance. Like most Americans, she was utterly unprepared for the death of a loved one, ignorant of the stages of grief, and surrounded by people as terrified and ignorant of these things as she was. Her book became both a memoir of her own trial‐and‐error grieving and a guide for other people, especially women. Widow was adapted into a television movie aired on NBC in 1976. Lynn wrote three additional books; Lifelines (1978), What Did I Do Wrong? Mothers, Children, Guilt (1985), and Being A Widow (1988). She continued writing and lecturing until her own death from cancer in 1987 at age 63.