the-winter-vault

<p><p>In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settle into a houseboat on the Nile just below Abu Simbel. Avery is one of the engineers responsible for the dismantling and reconstruction of the temple, a machine-worshipper who is nonetheless sensitive to their destructive power. Jean is a botanist by vocation, passionately interested in everything that grows. They met on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, witnessing the construction of the Seaway as it swallowed towns, homes, and lives. Now, at the edge of another world about to be inundated, they create their own world, exchanging the innocent memories we don't know we hold until given the gift of the eagerness of another.<p>But when tragedy strikes, they return to separate lives in Toronto&#58; Avery to school to study architecture; and Jean into the orbit of Lucjan, a Polish &#233;migr&#233; artist whose haunting tales of occupied Warsaw pull her further from Avery but offer her the chance to assume her most essential life...</p><h3>Publishers Weekly</h3><p><P>Profound loss, desolation and rebuilding are the literal and metaphoric themes of Michaels's exquisite second novel (after <I>Fugitive Pieces</I>). Avery Escher is a Canadian engineer recently moved to a houseboat on the Nile with his new wife, Jean, in 1964. Avery's part of a team of engineers trying to salvage Abu Simbel, which is about to be flooded by the new Aswan dam. His wife, Jean, meanwhile, carries with her childhood memories of flooded villages and the heavy absence of her mother, who died when she was young. Now, the sight of the entire Nubian nation being evacuated from their native land before it's flooded affects both Avery and Jean intensely. Jean's pregnancy seems a possible redemption, but their daughter is stillborn, and Jean falls into despair, shunning the former intimacy of her marriage. When the couple returns to Canada, they set up separate lives and another man enters the picture. Michaels is especially impressive at making a rundown of construction materials or the contents of a market as evocative as the shared moments between two young lovers. A tender love story set against an intriguing bit of history is handled with uncommon skill. <I>(May)</I></P>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p>