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A Forty Year Kiss Book Cover

A Forty Year Kiss

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Community Rooms 301 & 302

From the critically acclaimed author of Shotgun Lovesongs comes an exquisitely written, small-town story about one couple's hard-won second chance at love, forty years after their divorce.

Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing — he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. 

But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets. A brave and triumphant exploration of redemption and sunset triumph, A Forty Year Kiss is a once-in-a-lifetime love story, written with dazzling lyricism and remarkable clarity of spirit, from a celebrated author at the top of his game. It's a literary valentine that promises to be a love story for the ages.

In conversation with Laura Bird. 

Nickolas Butler

Nickolas Butler Author Photo

Nickolas Butler was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. He is the author of six books, most recently The Forty Year Kiss, and his writing has been praised by The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and many others. He lives on sixteen acres of land in rural Wisconsin adjacent to a buffalo farm. He is married and has two children.​ Find him online at https://nickolasbutler.com/

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Laura Anne Bird

Laura Bird Author Photo

A Milwaukee native, Laura Anne Bird graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in English. She lives in Madison, with her husband, three big kids, and little dog. She's the author of two middle grade novels, Crossing the Pressure Line and Marvelous Jackson, and she serves as an ambassador for Wisconsin Book Festival and a board member for Madison Public Library Foundation. Join Laura on Instagram @laura_at_the_library, where she celebrates all things literary. 

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