Forty-something Geoffrey
Tremont thought he was settled in his life in New York City - he has many
friends, a successful career doing voice-over spots and a relationship
with a woman who offers him companionship. But when Tremont is notified that he
has been named the executor of a will for an old college friend, Laura Wells,
whom he hasn't seen in twenty years, and he sets off to reconcile her estate in
Shady Grove, a small town in upstate New York in the Berkshire Mountains, his
life is suddenly upended. He falls, love at first sight, for Marian Ballantine,
a dear friend of the departed, a woman living in a perpetual state of mourning
since her husband's death and stuck in a repressed relationship of her own.
The inherent risks--and
joys--of love and loving are the cornerstones of The First Warm
Evening of the Year by Jamie
M. Saul (Light of Day). This is a psychologically astute and emotionally
evocative novel about death (literal and figurative), the nature of grief,
passion, self-knowledge and the complexities of love. Laura's passing assembles
a cast of deeply drawn supporting characters forced to examine their own intimate
associations - or lack thereof. Sometimes people settle and use substitutes for
cultivating more substantial relationships in their lives. But as one character
remarks when considering the risks of love despite the consequences of
heartbreak, "What's the point of having a heart, if you're not going to
use it?" Those in this absorbing, beautifully written novel ultimately
discover that sometimes love is not a choice, but rather a matter of having no
choice.
William
Morrow, $24.99, Hardcover, 9780061449727, 304 pp
Publication
Date: April 24, 2012
Please
note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly
different form) with the permission of Shelf
Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness:
Reader's Edition (4/27/12), click HERE.
