Discover THE TREES IN WINTER ... a novel about life and love, sex and death, passion and sacrifice, art and music, and the mysterious nature of the creative impulse that beats on and on, like the human heart, day after day. The Trees in Winter tells the story of Blake Thomas, aspiring jazz musician, who wants only to compose and play music--until he falls in love with Penny D'Arcy. As Blake settles down with Penny and the years unfurl, he comes to appreciate how choices made as a young man determine the kind of life he can have--and the kind he cannot. In sharp contrast to Blake's life is the life of his college friend, Benson Munro, a successful unmarried author whose interest in Blake's life--and wife--may exceed anything Blake could have imagined. The life of jazz trumpeter Blake Thomas is a life worth examining, one which-along with those of Penny the artist and Benson the writer-stirs a deeper appreciation of love and loss and the joy of creation, a greater understanding of strength in adversity, perseverance against all odds, hope in tomorrow, and in short, of what it is to be human. Exploring, with restraint and sensitivity, such weighty subjects as the scarring effects of child molestation, the monstrous nature of Alzheimer's, and the ever encroaching specter of mortality, the novel remains nonetheless firmly anchored to the destiny of its protagonist. A work of remarkable scope and depth, The Trees in Winter is at once family saga, bildungsroman, and meditation on the restless nature of the creative impulse. Blake's story is the story of anyone who has watched their hopes and dreams be replaced with the cold hard stuff of practical necessity. Set primarily in the 21st century American heartland, The Trees in Winter is a Babbitt for a new generation, and contains themes reminiscent also of The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.