Michael Cumpsty

Walter Vale is a widower who teaches economics at a Connecticut university. He lives alone and is no longer motivated by his work. In New York to present a paper at a conference, he goes to the apartment that he has not visited in some time, but has kept since his wife was alive, only to discover a young couple living there. Despite their great cultural differences, Walter befriends Tarek, a Syrian citizen and drummer, and gradually builds a friendship...

Battling illness and unable to finish a novel that has taken him ten years to write, aging novelist Leonard Schiller is slipping into literary obscurity. At one time a famous author, Schiller has been all but forgotten by the readers, colleagues and critics who once praised his works. When Heather Wolfe, an ambitious graduate student, convinces Schiller that her thesis could reintroduce his writing to the world, the reclusive writer is forced to confront...