Love from Afar: Finland

"Darting from one era to another, from one country to another, it exalts and laments the shifting landscapes of love in all its varieties. This book is so poignant it may just break your heart." -Dan Cryer, author of Being Alive and Having to Die: The Spiritual Odyssey of Forrest Church; former Newsday book critic

Seventy-three-year-old Frank Cadwallader lies in a hospital bed recovering from surgery, haunted not by his illness, but by a memory he has carried for decades. When his inquisitive granddaughter asks about a trip he had taken to Finland and the Soviet Union years ago Frank is drawn back to a summer that changed the course of his life.

In the mid-1980's Frank is a reputable New Hampshire ski salesman living a stable middle-class life with his wife and two teenage children. When he volunteers for a Quaker peace delegation traveling to Helsinki and Leningrad during the tense final years of the Cold War his journey promises little more than earnest conversations about the dangers of nuclear war.

But before he even leaves home, language lessons with a young Russian émigré begin to awaken new desires and curiosities - about art, music, language and love. Once overseas, an encounter with a beautiful Finnish woman leads to an impassioned, long-term correspondence and further unsettles his carefully ordered life. As his travels unfold across Finland and the Soviet Union the landscapes, people and ideas he encounters begin to reshape his understanding of himself and the life he thought he knew.

Spanning continents and decades Love from Afar: Finland is a reflective and deeply emotional human story about longing, moral choices and the surprising moments that can alter a life forever.

Author: Ford Von Reyn
Publisher: Epigraph Publishing
Published: 09/09/2026
Pages: 292
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.87lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.66d
ISBN: 9781966293521


Review Citation(s):
PW Booklife Reviews 09/21/2026

About the Author
Von Reyn, Ford: - Ford von Reyn is Professor of Medicine (Infectious Disease and International Health) at the Geisel School of Medicine. His research on tuberculosis and HIV led to a longstanding collaboration with colleagues in Finland-and to participation in the country's cross-country ski marathons. He continues to study the Finnish language, drawn to its unique harmonies and intricate declensions. This is his debut novel. He and his wife Sunny live on a dead-end dirt road in rural Vermont with their dog, Phebe, three Nigerian dwarf goats, and a Finnish sauna.