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Summary
Summary
Do you believe that love can last forever?
Jesse Sienna doesn't. His own parents' marriage was caring, but passionless, and his own romantic history tells him that love burns brightest before fizzling out completely. So when his elderly father, Mickey, moves in with him and seems unable to understand Jesse's no-strings-attached relationship with his current girlfriend, Jesse barely pays attention. It's just another example of how different they are-and more evidence that he and his father will never connect on any meaningful level.
But the truth is, Mickey Sienna knows more about love than most people learn in a lifetime. More than half a century ago, he found the truest love that life can offer. He knows the endless rewards of investing your heart and soul in someone . . . and he knows the devastating costs of letting that perfect someone slip by.
When Mickey sees Jesse taking an extraordinary woman for granted, he decides it's time to tell Jesse his story-a story he's never shared with any of his children before. Over the course of the next few months, Mickey explains his most private and fulfilling moments to his youngest son . . . and forever changes Jesse's perception of love and the possibilities of a lasting relationship.
At once a stirring family drama and a touching romance, The Forever Year is filled with richly drawn characters and powerful situations. You will respond personally to the people you meet in this novel, and you will find yourself deeply enmeshed in their stories. And you might find yourself looking at love in a new way.
Author Notes
Ronald Anthony lives in southern Connecticut with his wife and three children. He is currently completing his second novel, Crossing the Bridge .
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
Can love last forever? Is forever longer than this interminable first novel? After his wife dies, Mickey Sienna rattles around in his suburban New Jersey colonial. Physically frail but mentally sharp, the former stockbroker still trades online, but when he escapes an accidental kitchen fire, his grown kids put in their two cents. Maybe dear old dad should be parked in an assisted-living facility where he can't hurt himself. Or at least sell the house and buy a smaller place. Yes, says Mickey, but what about the memories? Get out your handkerchiefs, because here come more than 50 years of marriage to saintly but dull Dorothy. They had some swell kids, too: Darlene, Matty, Denise, and a surprise fourth baby, Jesse, who's 20 years younger than Darlene and trying to figure out why he gets along better with his nieces and nephews than with his siblings. (Hint: he's amazingly immature.) This strapping toddler is now 32 and only just beginning to realize that the world does not revolve around him. But why? He thinks and thinks. "I was too young for one group and too old for the other. I was a man without a generation." Jesse is a sensitive soul who's wary of making a commitment but tired of playing the field, what with all that emotional scar tissue on his metaphorical heart. Yes, Jesse is a thoroughly modern Millie for the millennium, a man with genuine issues, who's not afraid to talk about his feelings at great length, as if a talk-show audience were hanging on every word. A multitude of supporting characters give their opinions and add a few details about what happened when. Then there's one last gasp from Dad, who explains about his long-lost love; he still loves her and she still loves ice cream. The message? Gather ye rosebuds, of course. A lackluster entry in the men-who-write-mush category, which Nicholas Sparks (see below) still has pretty much to himself. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Jesse, youngest son of widower Mickey Sienna, 83, asks his father to move in with him instead of to the assisted-living facility preferred by his siblings. Father and son quickly acclimate to each other's idiosyncrasies, but Jesse's healthy twenty-first-century relationship with his girlfriend, Marina, completely befuddles Mickey. To him, Marina is a rare woman whom Jesse should treasure, but Jesse, still smarting from numerous failed relationships, is not ready to commit. Trying to show Jesse how disastrous it would be for him to lose Marina, Mickey reveals the secret of his first and greatest love. In a series of emotionally draining chapters stretching out over several weeks, Mickey confides his love for Gina, an intelligent, passionate woman to whom he was engaged before her untimely death over 50 years earlier. Jesse realizes how foolish he has been, telling Marina his father was right when he called him a moron. Compelling characters quickly engage the reader in a heartfelt, if somewhat predictable, tale of romance lost and found. --Deborah Donovan
