Jonathan Evison’s latest novel, “The Heart of Winter,” centers on nonagenarian Abe Winter and his wife of 70 years, Ruth. This big-hearted tale alternates between the spouses’ points of view to consider their decisions and compromises over a lifetime together.

Readers familiar with Evison will instantly recognize his signature style — the characters’ interior musings about everything from life ambitions to prune juice, for instance.

The book opens with a gathering of the couple’s three surviving children and some longtime neighbors to celebrate Abe’s 90th birthday. The “kids” — now senior citizens themselves — have traveled from their homes in Corvallis and Denver to converge on the Puget Sound island where Abe and Ruth raised them.

Although this is a celebration, it’s also a chance for Anne, Kyle and Maddie to express concern about their parents’ refusal to consider living anywhere but on their island farmstead. Abe and Ruth are adamant about remaining in the place where they’ve built their lives.

This week’s book

“The Heart of Winter” by Jonathan Evison

Dutton — 368 pp — $28

But only weeks after the celebration, Ruth receives a medical diagnosis that disrupts their lives and jeopardizes their independence.

Evison hopscotches back and forth in time, sharing the beginning of the couple’s relationship, which started with an ill-conceived double date at the University of Washington in the winter of 1953.

Ruth is a first-year student who has fled a southwestern Washington mill town for the presumed sophistication of life in Seattle. She is not at all taken with Abe. He is a junior majoring in business administration. He wears a bow tie and he’s a Republican — how square! And he doesn’t even know how to bowl.

On the other hand, Abe — while fully aware that he is coming across like a stick in the mud — finds himself hopelessly captivated by Ruth’s beauty and by her outspokenness – even though, he realizes, it challenges his ideas about “feminine decorum.”

His hope for a second date hinges on a desperate plan to become better at bowling right away and challenge her to a rematch. That, for Abe, is creative thinking.

Evison touches on the moments, large and small, that forge an enduring relationship over seven decades.

Some of that means sacrificing personal time.

Abe works tirelessly outside of the home as an insurance broker in order to make life comfortable for his growing family.

And as a mid-20th century mother, Ruth devotes years to serving as the domestic administrator over a bustling household of kids, pets, and projects.

It’s true, there are other times when each half of this duo carelessly takes the other for granted, or is briefly distracted by an opportunity that is perceived to be shinier.

But there are also many, many times when husband and wife forsake individual ego for tolerance or — even better — finding things they can agree upon, whether that be crossword puzzles, sourdough toast, or anything, Evison writes, “to build bridges across the divide.”

The beginning of 2025 has already been a harsh season for too many. We might do well to consider the lessons Evison offers in “The Heart of Winter.”