The Heart of Winter

August 1, 2024

Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke had a disastrous blind date in college that managed to turn into an enduring marriage. Bestselling Evison (Again and Again) portrays their 70-year relationship across decades of ups and downs, as the couple navigate how to continue to be there for each other while facing illness and dwindling independence. Prepub Alert.

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November 25, 2024
Evison (Legends of the North Cascades) traces the history of a marriage in this tender outing. In 2023, Abe and Ruth Winters’s three children gather at the family farmhouse on Bainbridge Island, Wash., for Abe’s 90th birthday. Following the celebration, Ruth, who is three years younger than Abe, complains of a toothache—and when she subsequently receives a diagnosis of oral cancer requiring extensive surgery and a lengthy recovery, the couple’s customary roles are reversed. Abe clumsily tries (and often fails) to care for Ruth, as the couple attempts to hold onto their independence despite their children’s insistence that they sell their home. The present-day action is interspersed with glimpses into the 70-year history of their relationship, from their meeting at the University of Washington, where Ruth was a budding bohemian with literary aspirations and Abe, a Republican, was a business student, through the early years of marriage and parenthood, during which Ruth let go of her youthful ideals while Abe focused on providing for the family financially if not always emotionally. Ruth draws the most sympathy, as her ambitions evaporate over the course of her life, and in Evison’s skilled hands, Abe’s late in life attempt to be a more supportive husband feels genuine. This is a poignant testament to the sustaining potential of marriage.

Starred review from December 1, 2024
Abe Winter is celebrating his ninetieth birthday surrounded by his loving family--Ruth, his wife of nearly 70 years, and their children Anne, Kyle and Maddie, each now getting up there in years themselves. The time line soon shifts to 1953, when Abe and Ruth meet as students at college. Abe is a practical, bow-tie-wearing square, while Ruth is a highly cultured grammar snob who dreams of studying art and poetry in Paris. After meeting on a blind date, Abe is immediately besotted, while Ruth is unimpressed. Back in the present, Ruth has a worrisome toothache that turns out to be a malignant mass in her jaw, requiring surgery that removes part of her mandible, seven teeth, and half of her tongue. Evison powerfully depicts the fear and uncertainty as one's mortality becomes reality. Meanwhile, the earlier time line moves forward as the family relocates to a beautiful five-acre farm on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The family is growing, and Abe's insurance business is thriving. Evison wonderfully captures the family dynamics and personalities of each character as Abe and Ruth raise spirited, willful children during the counterculture years and navigate the strains of marriage. One of our very best writers, Evison expertly details the hopes and dreams, sacrifices and tragedies of family life.

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Starred review from January 1, 2025
Scenes from a long, unlikely, battle-tested marriage. Evison's ninth novel opens in 2023, on Abe Winter's 90th birthday party. A modest, conservative man--lifelong Republican, sold insurance for years, lives on a quiet patch of land on Bainbridge Island, Washington--he dislikes all the celebratory attention from his wife, Ruth, and three children. But there's a lot going on beneath his stolid facade, which we learn more about once Ruth is diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her jaw, prompting surgery, a difficult recovery, therapy, and suddenly urgent questions regarding mortality and elder care. Evison shuttles between past and present to explore their relationship and clarify their response to the crisis. They met in college as a quintessential opposites-attract couple--Abe a prim "I Like Ike" type, Ruth a progressive poetry lover--and soon settled down and formed a family. Evison chronicles some familiar domestic-novel disruptions--infidelity, resentment over division of labor, a tragic loss--but because we know they stuck together, the novel's mood is one of accomplishment. As Evison writes, a marriage "is shaped gradually and methodically to withstand the ruinous effects of time and outside forces beyond the control of its principal players." Their past challenges add to the drama of Ruth's illness and Abe's earnest but fumbling attempts to care for her. In the process, he affords this aging couple a dose of realism and dignity that's often lacking in novels. Evison neatly balances their everyday lives, from running an errand to taking a shower, with a broader portrait of how couples adapt and grow closer in the face of challenges. Evison's vision is unsentimental, but he's rooting for Abe and Ruth, and encouraging readers to do the same. A savvy portrait of love and devotion.

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