The Autumn of Ruth Winters
In this heartwarming story about second acts and second chances, a no-nonsense retiree, very much set in her ways, must learn to adapt and make peace with her past in order to build a fulfilling future.
Ruth Winters is retired, widowed, and resigned to spending the rest of her life alone in her suburban home. She likes her routine and uses it to avoid having to spend time with other people. She probably wouldn't call herself fulfilled, but it's too late now to go chasing happiness.
Then three things happen at once: a beloved niece makes a big announcement, an old flame reaches out, and her estranged sister receives life-changing news. Ruth finds herself reconnecting with people she thought were long gone from her world, as she is forced to reconsider her expectations for this phase of her life.
None of this fits into Ruth's routine--in fact, the whole thing just blows to bits. But when Ruth starts to pick up the pieces, she discovers that maybe it's not too late to make something new after all.
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Minneapolis native Marshall Fine's career as an award-winning journalist, critic, and filmmaker has spanned fifty years. He has written biographies of filmmakers John Cassavetes and Sam Peckinpah, directed documentaries about film critic Rex Reed and comedian Robert Klein, conducted the Playboy Interview with Howard Stern, and chaired the New York Film Critics Circle four times. The author currently lives in Ossining, New York. This is his first published novel.
"Readers will enjoy cheering for Fine's late bloomer." --Publishers Weekly
"A late-in-life coming-of-age tale, proving that reconnection and reconciliation don't have an age limit. Fans of Hazel Prior's How the Penguins Saved Veronica and Lee Smith's Silver Alert will find lots to like in Fine's heartwarming novel about unexpected connections at unexpected times." --Booklist
"An utterly beautiful tale of familial love that cannot be extinguished through conflict and anger and the rewards of stepping out of one's comfort zone at any stage of life." --Kyra Davis, New York Times bestselling author of Just One Night
"If it is possible to write a bildungsroman about a woman in her sixties, Marshall Fine has done it. Fine takes his reserved heroine, Ruth Winters, on a journey through buried resentments, stifled grief, and petty slights until she finally accepts the love and compassion that was within her all along. She blossomed on the page like Austin's Elinor Dashwood right before my eyes. Marshall Fine has created a beautiful and moving character, that if we open our hearts, we will see Ruth Winters everywhere." --Griffin Dunne, author of The Friday Afternoon Club
"A delightfully shrewd and entertaining novel with an aging, quirky heroine who reminds us that some of life's most profound turns can be at the end of the roller coaster. I fell in love with Ruth Winters and think you will too." --Julia Heaberlin, internationally bestselling author of Night Will Find You
"The moving story of a lonely, ordinary woman told with compassion, wit, and an incredible wealth of very human detail. Time, memory, family, and second chances, it deals with it all. I was rooting for Ruth Winters all the way to the end. Highly recommended." --Paul Giamatti
"As a longtime film critic, Marshall Fine often showed a kinship for the gonzo wallop of Tarantino, Scorsese, and Bloody Sam Peckinpah. So Fine fans may be shocked that his funny, touching, and vital first novel, The Autumn of Ruth Winters, features a retired widow in her seventies going it alone in suburban Minnesota. Look deeper and Ruth and her creator, both from Minneapolis, prove a natural fit. Ruth has a gunslinger's mentality when it comes to keeping the world at bay, plus a sharp tongue for those who try her patience, and that includes Marvel movies and a call from her estranged sister. It's a family crisis that gives Ruth a second shot at life and even romance. Don't worry how Fine manages to persuasively enter the head and heart of a woman who's discovering her real self for the first time. Just let this book work its magic. It's an exuberant gift." --Peter Travers, ABC News and Good Morning America
"In The Autumn of Ruth Winters, Marshall Fine unspools the complex threads of familial relationships and weaves them back into an affecting tapestry of life's biggest and smallest moments." --Rob Burnett, writer-director, The Fundamentals of Caring
"What really hides behind the forced smiles of "Minnesota nice"? Longtime critic Marshall Fine pushes past middle-aged, Midwestern politeness to reveal some surprising drama in The Autumn of Ruth Winters. Yet, filled as it is with sibling rivalries, bad marriages, and secret scandals, ultimately this is a novel about forgiveness, uncovering not only disappointments but opportunities--once missed, now reclaimed." --Stephen Whitty, author of The Alfred Hitchcock Encyclopedia
"Only a really great writer can take a story about a somewhat difficult woman and make you care and keep reading till the end. But then, The Autumn of Ruth Winters is an absorbing novel for anyone who believes in love, in living life without comparison, and in the idea that, as George Eliot said, 'It's never too late to be what you might have been.'" --Georgette Gouveia, author of The Games Men Play series
