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"I was in the modern world once," Jessie Calder tells one of his grandsons at a party for the widower's seventy-sixth birthday. Living alone in an over-fifty-five community, Jessie's gift from his family is a new laptop computer that unexpectedly resurrects a face from his past. A book that begins as a wise commentary on aging then deftly slips into a flashback more than fifty years past—one in which a winter storm becomes an important character in a tightly constructed thriller.
This novella does what worthwhile books should do. It has sharply drawn characters, clearly articulates what is at stake, and keeps the reader beside the storyteller. Using parallel narratives that slowly converge, author Mark Swanson follows two sets of travelers as they navigate a blizzard determined to overwhelm them. The author patiently develops the relationships among his players: college-age Jessie, his former love, January Weaton, and their mutual friend, Ray, in one vehicle with well-meaning but inept Tom Adler and two ominous cohorts in another.
The author's prose is spare and interesting, and he never strays from the point as the two groups fight their way through life-threatening winter conditions, eventually encountering one another at a roadside diner in a tense confrontation reminiscent of Robert E. Sherwood's legendary stage play The Petrified Forest. While the penultimate denouement might be deemed pat, it works because a pat resolution after so much built-up tension is exactly what is needed. The author finishes with a bittersweet cap that returns to the present day, keeping an important promise by answering a question posed in the opening pages. The result is a satisfying and entertaining read that delivers.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review
Swanson's Red Wine and Jazz was a 2026 Eric Hoffer Book Award nominee.