Middle Age: A Romance

A heroic death on the river shatters an affluent suburb, laying bare the private obsessions and secret infatuations of the living.

In Salthill-on-Hudson, a half-hour train ride from Manhattan, everyone is rich, beautiful, and -- though they look much younger -- middle-aged. But when Adam Berendt, a charismatic, mysterious sculptor, dies suddenly in a brash act of heroism, shock waves rock the town.

The relics he leaves behind seem modest, ascetic, and — to those who catalog his hidden bank accounts — bewilderingly opulent. Letters from prominent wives surface in his studio, alongside municipal bonds and vouchers from Las Vegas casinos.

His grieving neighbors rush to celebrate an unworldly local martyr, only to unearth a trail of assumed names and unraveling domestic illusions. But who was Adam Berendt? Was he in fact a hero, or someone more flawed and human?

• Small Town Setting: On the surface, Salthill-on-Hudson presents an enclave of manicured estates and historic riverfront houses, until the sculptor’s abandoned mongrel dog, Apollo, begins trotting from doorstep to doorstep, unsettling the mourners.


• Multiple POV: The narrative shifts through the private crises of the town’s circle, following grieving bookstore owner Marina Troy, conflicted attorney Roger Cavanagh, and longtime spouses whose orderly lives unravel in the wake of the tragedy.


• Domestic Drama: Behind the stately walls of their restored home on Old Mill Way, Camille and Lionel Hoffmann find their decades-long union fracturing into quiet estrangement, conflicting loyalties, and a volatile household of rescued shelter dogs.


• Psychological Suspense: Driven to question everything she believed about their friendship, glamorous socialite Augusta Cutler abruptly flees her privileged marriage, embarking on a solitary search across the country to uncover the sculptor’s hidden past.


• Also by This Author: Blonde, Carthage and Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.