An Unexpected Break in the Weather

After fifty years together, Gertrude and Mildred are facing some serious life changes. The bridal shop they own, A Rose on Corydon, has been a meeting place for their small community of friends and customers, with whom they have long shared joys and sorrows, worries, and triumphs. Unexpectedly, a series of events threatens the foundation of the life they have made together and tests their relationship in new ways. Mildred’s 73-year-old hip is no match for an icy sidewalk, and long-time friend Wordie stares cancer in the face. Thirteen-year-old Arlie, aged beyond her tender years by the same illness, is a stalwart support, as is the thrice-married Perfume, on her way down a fourth aisle to eternal happiness—, holding, perhaps, the key that makes the changes more bearable. This poetic and graceful novel explores the secrets and promises sustained by a love affair whose dimensions render speechless the most experienced of lovers. Educator, activist, editor, and writer Deborah Schnitzer is the author of the novel Gertrude Unmanageable and the long poem Loving Gertrude Stein, as well as scholarly works and critical anthologies equally devoted to the unexpected.