Winter Ridge: A Love Story

Mature love story explores the power of memory, music and enduring love: "Winter Ridge" the first novel by a remarkable new voice in American fiction, Bruce Kellner. Kellner's novel is an autumnal departure for the noted scholar and author of a dozen books on 20th century arts and letters, as well as a landmark study of the Harlem Renaissance during the Jazz Age. With "Winter Ridge," Kellner at last turns his discerning eye to matters of the heart. "We are always the same age inside ourselves," says Izabela Shandover, a World War II Polish refugee living at Winter Ridge, an isolated compound outside Louisville, Kentucky. For over a century, Winter Ridge has remained apart from ordinary time, firm in its traditions and reluctant to embrace change. Into this tranquil community comes Silas Harmon, who in retirement has returned to the summer cottage of his youth. At a distance from himself and others, Silas is a lifetime loner still haunted by the memory of his secret love affair with Izabela when he was sixteen and she was thirty-two. Now, long after they were wrenched apart without warning, Silas and Izabela are drawn together-once again through the healing power of music--to confront the dark mystery of their past and a future that is far from certain. Silas also rediscovers several colorful characters from his youth, including his boyhood friend Hosea Garvey, the descendant of the African American family of caretakers at Winter Ridge, and Andrew McMurtry, the wryly observant homosexual bookseller who introduced Silas to the wonder of literature. Silas rediscovers himself as well, as he and Izabela must come to terms with the people they grew up to be and to consider how they will spend the rest of their lives. Filled with unforgettable characters and written in a burnished, quiet prose, "Winter Ridge" is above all a hopeful love story of renewal and reward, an autumnal paean to both the memory of the past and the possibilities of the future.