. . . . "His newspaper career is in decline, his marriage dissolved, his mother dead and his father partially paralyzed in a car accident, but Joseph Burke still has his looks, though his life is a shambles. Relegated to \"Death Row\" (the Siberia of the Wash ington Herald newsroom) because he slept with a source who was the wife of a distinguished senator, Burke, at 33, writes nothing but obituaries. Will his father, who's smitten with a married Salvadoran nurse, walk again? Will love blossom with Laura, lovely widow of a prominent restaurateur whose obit he wrote? And just how closely does art follow life?" . . "Love & obits"@en . "Love & obits" . . . . . . "Black humor (Literature)" . . "Black humor (Literature)"@en . . . "Love and obits"@en . "Love and obits" . . . "Fiction" . "Fiction"@en . . "Washington (D.C.)" . .