Love from Afar: Finland

Seventy-three-year-old Frank Cadwallader lies in a hospital bed recovering from surgery,
haunted not by his illness, but by a memory he has carried for decades. When his inquisitive
granddaughter asks about a trip he had taken to Finland and the Soviet Union years ago Frank is
drawn back to a summer that changed the course of his life.
In the mid-1980’s Frank is a reputable New Hampshire ski salesman living a stable middle-class
life with his wife and two teenage children. When he volunteers for a Quaker peace delegation
traveling to Helsinki and Leningrad during the tense final years of the Cold War his journey
promises little more than earnest conversations about the dangers of nuclear war.
But before he even leaves home, language lessons with a young Russian émigré begin to
awaken new desires and curiosities – about art, music, language and love. Once overseas, an
encounter with a beautiful Finnish woman leads to an impassioned, long-term correspondence
and further unsettles his carefully ordered life. As his travels unfold across Finland and the
Soviet Union the landscapes, people and ideas he encounters begin to reshape his
understanding of himself and the life he thought he knew.
Spanning continents and decades Love from Afar: Finland is a reflective and deeply emotional
human story about longing, moral choices and the surprising moments that can alter a life
forever.

292 pages

Paperback, 9.0" L x 6.0" W

Ford von Reyn is Professor of Medicine (Infectious Disease and International Health) at the
Geisel School of Medicine. His research on tuberculosis and HIV led to a longstanding
collaboration with colleagues in Finland - and to participation in the country’s cross-country ski
marathons. He continues to study the Finnish language, drawn to its unique harmonies and
intricate declensions. This is his debut novel. He and his wife Sunny live on a dead-end dirt road
in rural Vermont with their dog, Phebe, three Nigerian dwarf goats, and a Finnish sauna.