The Years — Nicholas Delbanco

The Years is about the passage of time: from youth to middle age to the winter of life. Forty years after their intense but doomed college romance, Lawrence and Hermia meet again on a Mediterranean cruise. They fall in love even more deeply, but being in their sixties, with plenty of baggage, they wonder if marriage is the right move. When Lawrence visits Hermia's home on Cape Cod, she has one request: “Please stay.” What happens when he does fills the rest of this wise and unforgettable novel.

With enormous sympathy and keen insight, Nicholas Delbanco follows Hermia and Lawrence through their years together and apart, in Los Angeles and New York, Michigan and Massachusetts, in frailness and in health. Old scores are settled; old wounds healed. A stunning, wise book about first and final love, The Years addresses the irrevocable end of life…and what ultimately endures.