It is December; Christmas is approaching and the magic of one of Europe’s most beautiful cities beckons. A father looks for himself in the past, struggling to deal with a recent divorce, his teenage son in tow. A single, selfless mother accompanies her only daughter and friends for a weekend-long bachelorette party. And a husband treats his wife to a birthday weekend away, somehow heightening her anxieties and insecurities about age, desire, and motherhood. As these people brush against one another in the squares, museums, and parks of Amsterdam, their lives are transfigured in the winter light, and they encounter the complexities of love in a city that challenges what has gone before. Tender and humane, elevating the ordinary to something timeless and important, The Light of Amsterdam is a novel of compassion and rare dignity.
