Winter Eyes: A Novel of Secrets

A coming-of-age novel set in New York and Michigan during the Vietnam War era, Winter Eyes shows how the past controls and divides the immigrant Borowski family, and isolates their American-born son Stefan. But when Stefan comes to learn the terrible secrets at the heart of his family, that knowledge transforms them all and points the way to a happy new future for him, despite his doubts about his sexual identity.
A haunting and remarkable novel, Winter Eyes is a tale of family secrets, silence, revelation – and the hope for healing and change. A spellbinding achievement from a talented author of American fiction.
Lev Raphael is a Lambda Literary Awards winner and multiple nominee for several books. This new 2022 edition contains a foreword by Brian Bouldrey (The Genius of Desire).

“Raphael's Winter Eyes resembles a piano sonata, a piece he knows so well that his fingers breathed the music.” — Los Angeles Times

“Winter Eyes is one of the most affecting, absorbing, and quietly powerful American coming-of-age novels.” — Booklist

“Loneliness, separation, desire and the struggle with gay identity are leitmotifs of Lev Raphael's novel. What distinguishes it is Raphael's handling of grand themes, and his ongoing exploration of worlds both Jewish and gay and how they intersect, daring himself and his readers to contemplate wholeness.” — Jenifer Levin

Lev Raphael is the author of 26 books in a dozen genres from memoir to mystery. His first book of short stories Dancing on Tisha B'Av won a Lambda Literary Award. He's published hundreds of stories, essays, articles, and book reviews in a wide range of newspapers, magazines and journals. Lev has won Amelia's Reed Smith Fiction Prize and International Quarterly's Crossing Boundaries Prize for Innovative Prose, awarded by novelist D.M. Thomas, author of The White Hotel. His suspense novel Assault with a Deadly Lie was a Midwest Book Award finalist.Lev's fiction and essays have appeared in over 24 anthologies in the U.S. and England, and are taught at colleges and universities around the country. His fiction has been analyzed in scholarly journals, books, and conferences like MLA. Special Archives at Michigan State University's Library purchased his literary papers and updates them yearly. Lev has reviewed for the Detroit Free Press, the Washington Post and other papers. You can connect with him on Facebook or Twitter, his author website is www.levraphael.com, and he teaches creative writing online.

Brian Bouldrey is the author of four works of fiction and four works of nonfiction, and several anthologies. He teaches writing and literature at Northwestern University, and his novels The Genius of Desire, Love, the Magician, and The Boom Economy are all available from ReQueered Tales.