Three people whose lives touched during WWII take turns narrating this
haunting psychological thriller from Nayman.--Publishers Weekly
In the years following WWII, the horrors of that war reverberate in the
lives of the intertwined characters in Nayman's second novel, a story of
guilt, mistaken identity, and love . . . Nayman's saga delves deeply
into how even those not directly affected are forever changed by
war.--Booklist
With insight and a dazzling imagination, Shira Nayman transports us into
a web of post-World War II lives, from Shanghai, to London, to Long
Island. As in her previous works, Nayman's characters show us the long
shadow that war casts on memory, identity, and love.
--Nancy Sherman, author of The Untold War
The characters in this compelling novel continue to haunt me. Shira
Nayman weaves their passions and betrayals in the wake of devastation
into a beautiful and heartbreaking story about the impossibility of
escaping the residue of war.
--Julie Burstein, author of Spark: How Creativity Works
Shira Nayman writes with wisdom and courage.--Ursula Hegi
A marvelous book that sweeps across decades and around the world to
reveal dark secrets locked tight within the human heart.
--Jed Horne, author of Desire Street and Breach of Faith
Shira Nayman's sentences have heft and spine and grace, and her vision
is clear and generous.
--Mary Gordon, author of Spending
Oscar is a mysterious Englishman who presides over Ellis Park, a
sprawling mansion on Long Island's North Shore. It is 1951; as the jazz
bands play and the ever-present houseguests waft into the ballroom, the
war seems much farther away than a mere six years. However, Oscar is
tormented by his own questionable wartime dealings--and embroiled in a
drama involving late-night meetings with an official, with whom he
speaks German. He is also haunted by memories of Christine, his great
love who, after the war, sailed to Shanghai; he has no idea of the
murky, moral depths into which she has fallen.
One of Oscar's frequent houseguests, Marilyn, a photographer who spent
the war years in England, has moved in to Ellis Park for the summer and
is working on a book of her wartime photography. Marilyn reminds Oscar
of Christine; he finds refuge late at night sitting beside her in the
pristine photographic studio he built in a basement area, deep beneath
the sumptuous, brightly lit rooms above. Oscar suspects that Marilyn,
married to Simon, has embarked on an affair with the adventurous
Barnaby, a swashbuckling character whose far-flung wanderings included a
long stint in Shanghai, where Barnaby himself had been involved with
Christine.
The narrative unfolds through the three different points of view of
Oscar, Christine, and Marilyn, in locations on three continents--Long
Island, Shanghai, and London. A Mind of Winter is a complex,
page-turning, literary psychological thriller, which takes up a rich
array of themes: the ways in which we choose our beliefs and build our
lives around them; the self-deceptive shadings that undulate within; the
moral ambiguities of being an artist; and the ways in which
socio-historical circumstances inevitably bite into and shape personal
identity and destiny.
