A recently-widowed doctor, stunned by grief, retreats to a cabin on
Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. Inside she has a puppy and a stack of
letters from an old lover. Outside, there’s a bear. As she revisits her
letters, we come to see, through Tom Connor’s eyes, the dusty, broken
alleys of Central America during the war years. The two narratives taken
together explore themes of life-long love, about what we can see only
when we are ready to see, and how hope can grow in the darkest of
places.
David Allan Cates is the author of four previous novels, most recently Ben Armstrong’s Strange Trip Home, winner of a Gold Medal in the Independent Book Publishers Award. He’s published numerous short stories and poems, and his nonfiction has appeared in magazines such as Outside and The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler. He’s the executive director of Missoula Medical Aid.