Wherever There Is Light: A Nov

From the beloved author of Comeback Love, an “absorbing” (The Washington Post) tale of forbidden romance set against the backdrop of the segregated American South, war-torn Europe, and the civil unrest of the Sixties.

Sometimes falling in love is the most courageous act.

Julian Rose is only fifteen when he leaves his family and Germany for a new life in 1920s America. Initially struggling, he eventually finds his way—first by becoming one of the preeminent bootleggers on the East Coast, and later by amassing a fortune in real estate.

Kendall Wakefield is a free-spirited college senior who longs to become a painter. Her mother, the daughter of a slave and the founder of an African-American college in South Florida, spends her days running the institution and trying to find a suitable match for her only daughter.

One evening in 1938, she hosts a dinner that reunites Julian with his parents, who have been rescued from the Nazis by her college. There, Kendall and Julian meet for the first time, and from that unlikely encounter begins a thirty-year, on-again off-again affair that will take the lovers from Miami Beach to Greenwich Village to postwar life in Paris. Throughout their travels, they will encounter the likes of Sartre, Picasso, and a host of other artists, writers, and intellectuals just as they are in the process of redefining culture for a new generation. Through it all, their longing for each other remains a constant in the ceaseless sweep of time.

Wherever There Is Light is an absorbing, panoramic tale of twentieth-century America and an unforgettable story of defiant love that “is epic and truly felt” (Kirkus Reviews).

Peter Golden is an award-winning journalist, novelist, biographer, and historian. He lives outside Albany, New York, with his wife and son. He is the acclaimed author of the novels Comeback Love, Wherever There Is Light, and Nothing Is Forgotten.