'Witty, moving and eminently readable, Nearly Departed is the millennial Truly Madly Deeply we’ve all been waiting for' Mike GayleJoel Foster is a hapless twenty-something. His girlfriend, Beth Lewis, would likely have been a hapless twenty-something, too, had she not been obliterated by a very large cement truck. Some time after Beth’s tragic death, Joel is still trying to juggle grief with the