A Forty Year Kiss is a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter day. Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years after his divorce from Vivian hoping to rekindle their love after inheriting a farm he plans to fix up. Vivian never left the town where they’d lived. She remarried, cared for her husband until he died, and had a daughter she now lives with while babysitting her granddaughters. She also has a secret. Charlie drinks too much, but when he’s with Vivian he yearns to quit. This is an old-fashioned, Kent Haruf-style, upper Midwest love story about good people trying to do the right thing.
Butler is masterful in the art of portraying older characters without stereotyping them. Charlie and Vivian are in their sixties and Butler shows them as complete beings not out-of-touch, old fogies. Fans of Lyle and Peg Hovde, the wonderful couple in Butler’s magnificent Little Faith will find the same type of normal Midwestern characters simply trying to do the right thing and live their lives with honor in Charlie and Vivian.
Charlie found Vivian on Facebook. He signed up just to find her. They’d messaged back and forth and talked on the phone a few times. Now, here he was sitting in the Tomahawk Room on Bridge Street in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin waiting for her to walk through the door.
She walked in. “He was just standing there like a boy. Like a boy grinning on his birthday, or Christmas morning. And now she focused on the images of only a few moments ago. The man waving. She realized that it must have been him. She must have seen him waving, and then standing up from his stool and then sitting back down. Then awkwardly rushing to the door. And now here they were. Standing within inches of one another. As close as they had been in forty years, all of this she processed very quickly, and yet, she still could not believe it. That it was happening. That he was here, standing in front of her, smiling expectantly. He looked extremely happy to see her, his cheeks red with what looked like joy.”
They greeted each other, ordered wine, and talked for a while.
“Now, he turned to her, their knees practically touching, a faint electricity there, or magnetism, between them, and he said, Vivian, listen to me—I’m sorry if I wasted those years of your life. I’ve been thinking a lot about who I was back then and the mistakes I made. But I loved you very much and I’m sorry I was a bad husband.
She stared at him, at this new Charlie. . .”
Thus begins a tale of imperfect people trying to find happiness. What more could you want in a novel?
Summing it Up: Read A Forty Year Kiss to enjoy a novel that’s as much an ode to the Midwest as it is a celebration of second-chance love and becoming the person you were meant to be. Nickolas Butler is unusual in that he treats his characters fairly. He shows them completely without making excuses for their behaviors or trying to portray them as more than they’re capable of being. That makes them real which makes his novels feel a part of you.
Caveat: I met Nickolas Butler when his first novel debuted and reconnected with him when he participated in the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book and again when he stayed as a guest at the Good Hart Artist Residency while finishing the final draft of a previous book. He’s one of the good guys and his writing exemplifies that.
Rating: 5 Stars
Publication Date: February 4, 2024
Categories: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Book Club
Author Website: https://nickolasbutler.com/
Author Interview: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2025/02/04/a-forty-year-kiss/
What Others are Saying:
Book Reporter: https://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/a-forty-year-kiss/about
“This charming and empathetic portrayal of the Midwest and its denizens explores late-in-life romance, the pangs of regret, and the possibility of renewal no matter how much time has passed.” —Booklist
“The novel is beautiful and full of complex characters. It is a love story, not only between Charlie and Vivian but also between the novel and the Midwest, as the characters journey between Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, and Spooner, WI, along with Minneapolis and Chicago. Fans of Butler and of romance will be delighted with this novel.” —Library Journal
“A big-hearted, comforting novel about second chances—at love, at recovery, at forgiveness and redemption. Butler treats all his characters with dignity and affection. When we die, we’d all be lucky to come back as a character in a Nickolas Butler novel.” —Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring
“Life-affirming and straight up beautiful. Will stoke the good fire in your chest, I absolutely loved it. A must-read.” Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook
“Thank you, Nickolas Butler, for writing a love story that feels so powerfully real, a story that captures the hope, grace, and joy of new love—but also the mistakes, scar tissue, and regret of past love. It’s a wonder to behold, a novel. Capable of such breadth. This is the kind of book that makes me a better human.” —Nathan Hill, author of The Nix and Wellness
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