Paradise Close: A Novel

The paths of an orphaned girl in 1971 and a sixty-something recluse in 2016 entwine in a novel of damaged souls and salvaged hope.In 1971, orphan Marlise Schadefourteen, anorectic, and evicted from the psychiatric hospital her trust fund can no longer supportfinds herself alone in an ancestral home during a blizzard.Marlises struggles to survive there become the focal point for a host of imperiled figures, living and dead, whose stories intersect with hers and with forces roiling the U.S. in the 70s.Decades later, on the brink of Trumps America, sixty-something Tee Handel is shaken by an inexplicable visitation.For years hes nursed a deep hurt over his breakup with a captivating artist, spending his days and nights in solitude tinkering with antique clocks. Whats become of the artist, and how Tee reacts to his mysterious guest, testifies to the risk and inexorability of change.These two seemingly unrelated tales entwine to show how the wages of the past are always with us, as are the dangerous and redemptive consequences of secrets confided and withheld.