Wendall and Ruby Forbes, married for more than fifty years, are confronting the vagaries of aging boomers: sleeplessness, loneliness, memory loss, fear that Ruby is showing signs of dementia, considering the pros and cons of ending life, and the failures of their generation.
A blizzard hits and a remarkable, perhaps unbelievable, band of strangers pay the Forbeses a visit. An indigenous Colombian refugee, his wife, an environmental academic and their child; a young man on an accidental journey quest; a teenage activist and her ten-year-old gay half-brother; and the voice of a sleep consultant in Indianapolis—they all take refuge in Wendall and Ruby’s home in the isolated town of Twenty-Six Mile House in northern Ontario.
The companionship of strangers, and a chance encounter with a foul-mouthed raven and talking lynx and her cub restore Wendall and Ruby’s hope for the future. This is a heartbreaking, funny, wise, and hopeful story.
