Either Side of Winter

Book excerpt: In Fall we see the tentative beginnings of an unlikely romance - between schoolteacher Amy and drifting former graduate, Charles. In Winter we hear how her colleague Howard learns, seventeen years too late, that he has a daughter following a brief fling with collegemate Annie. Spring and Summer tell the story of his daughter's friend Rachel's relationships with her literature teacher, Stuart, and her dying father Reuben. Executed with exquisite sympathy, tenderness and emotional nuance, Either Side of Winter is a moving and elegiac picture of people whose lives are inextricably linked by circumstance, community - and a need to be loved.