When Professor Alice Prescott writes a best-selling novel based on herpassionate, once-troubled marriage to journalist Tom Winslow, thecouples quiet Connecticut life is shaken by more than bad memories. Th epast itself returns, as if beckoned by Alices book. Now, the Winslows learnwhat their unyielding love has cost them--and others.Th e Chastened Heart is a novel of middle class American and Europeanmanners, satirical yet compassionate, realistic yet committed to the spiritualand ethical concerns of the very best fi ction. Robert Crookes deeplyemotional narrative urges a reader to follow the Winslows into a past that isboth personal and universal, and to embrace with them the mysteries thattheir marriage represents.