When Eric drops out of college and lucks into a job with a small-town newspaper, he meets Anna, an older woman with a story that will both haunt and inspire him for the rest of his life. Set in a remote North Dakota community in the last days before the Internet, the story unfolds around a romance that almost was and a meditation on what constitutes a life well-lived. Narrated by Eric as he looks back on their days together, he struggles to reconcile his memories with what he has since learned about Anna. The Winter in Anna is filled with moments of tenderness, even as it slowly reveals an unbearable tragedy at the heart of a quietly defiant life.
"I couldn't put down this wise tale-by turns bone-chilling, rollicking, bittersweet-of a young man's stint at the sort of small town newspaper that, sadly, has all but vanished. The Winter in Anna arrives via the journalist's older self-husband, father-and is enriched and enlarged by his big-hearted musings on what he failed to understand in his youth and how that failure haunts him still."
Elizabeth Evans, author of As Good As Dead
"A deceptively quiet novel that gradually gathers power around the themes of love, loss, memory, and the paramount importance of doing good work well. Gorgeous and affirming."
Mark Costello, National Book Award-nominated author of Big If
"Reed Karaim tells a tribal and ancient story about how our early choices shape us...With exotic details of a state filled with fire and ice, The Winter in Anna shows who we often find impossible to forgive: our younger selves."
