A Forty Year Kiss

"A story that captures the hope, grace, and joy of new love―but also the mistakes, scar tissue, and regret of past love. It's a wonder to behold, a novel capable of such breadth. This is the kind of book that makes me a better human." ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix and Wellness

From the critically acclaimed author of Shotgun Lovesongs comes an exquisitely written, small-town story about one couple's hard-won second chance at love, forty years after their divorce, now in trade paperback.

Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing―he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets.

A brave and triumphant exploration of redemption and sunset triumph, A Forty Year Kiss is a once-in-a-lifetime love story, written with dazzling lyricism and remarkable clarity of spirit, from a celebrated author at the top of his game. It's a literary valentine that promises to be a love story for the ages.

Nickolas Butler was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. He is the author of the internationally bestselling novel "Shotgun Lovesongs" and an acclaimed collection of short stories entitled, "Beneath the Bonfire” as well as three other novels. He lives on sixteen acres of land in rural Wisconsin adjacent to a buffalo farm. He is married and has two children.