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They only come around only so often, books that call you to your reading spot, demand your attention, beckoning to you like a siren. That’s how “The Heart of Winter” affected me, a new literary treasure by Jonathan Evison to be leisurely ingested. It’s a book about love, marriage, family, grief, acceptance and the process of aging, a wholly honest, heartfelt, philosophical must-read.
It’s 2023, and Ruth Winters is hosting a celebratory dinner for Abe, her husband, who is turning 90 and none too pleased about all the fuss. Their three adult children will attend as well as two couples who have been longtime friends of the Winters.
Ruth and Abe have been married for 70 years, and though they’ve been together for ages, they’ve had different personalities. Ruth is a free spirit, a liberal dreamer, passionate about the arts. Her political beliefs differ from Abe’s, who’s a stanch Republican.
They met in college and no one could have predicted they’d hit it off, but they did—an unplanned pregnancy sealing the deal. Abe worked his way up in the insurance business, eventually owning an insurance company. He’s stodgy, hardheaded, pragmatic and truly believes his 90th will be his last.
As Abe contemplates his demise, he takes comfort in the fact that he’s left Ruth in good shape financially because of a lifetime of hard work and planning. They own and adore the farm they live on, an albatross the kids feel is getting to be too much for their mom and dad. On his 90th, Abe thinks it’s imperative to “…move on now, while his children still had some life left in them, while they could still look after Ruth.”
The couple’s three children arrive at the celebration, traveling distances to do so. Their oldest Anne, followed by Kyle, 64, and Maddie, who is 53. The early death of another daughter is mentioned. We learn more about her as the book alternates from Abe and Ruth’s past to their present. Over the course of their long marriage, the couple deals with a plethora of problems and withstand day-to-day humdrum, all of which soften and change them. But the biggest happenstance in their relationship comes after Abe’s 90th, a scare that shifts the couple’s perspective on their final years.
This thought-provoking book is brilliantly constructed as it moves about in time, allowing readers to see the couple as seniors, then looking back on them as young marrieds, parents dealing from babies that morph in challenging teens and empty nesters. Ruth must adjust to being a stay at home mom while workaholic Abe finds solace in his business. Abe must accept Ruth’s desires to escape responsibility in ways he couldn’t have imagined.
“The Heart of Winter” is captivating from first line to last, a personal book that will stay with readers and have them reflecting on their own lives, and those of their families. This page turner is a marvelous way to start a New Year, a true gift, a book to devour and tell your friends about.
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