A man's quest for fulfillment leads him from New York to Estonia with his eccentric wife and child. Seeking a deeper connection, he quickly finds a home but soon discovers that his new life comes with its own challenges. As he adapts to his surroundings, he becomes engrossed in the practicalities of maintaining a house with multiple furnaces, symbolizing his struggle for contentment and the complexities of his new existence.
Some people have said this book is romantic and maybe it is: a young lost American college grad falls in love with an intriguing European journalist and embarks on a journey that restores his faith in himself and the world. Sure, it is romantic. But it was never easy. A foreigner arrives in the middle of a dark winter and must survive in Estonia, the "least fortunate Scandinavian country," a land where people eat blood sausage and jellied meat, drink warm bread, and are always on time; a place where every family is haunted by the past and is struggling to catch up to the present. Over the course of one year, so much happens in this tiny northern land that it stops being foreign. Estonia and the college grad turned journalist become intimately acquianted. Inseparable. And in the end, he comes to love it, even when they do not want to let him back into their country.
Set in Estonia in 2003, the narrative explores the transformative period as the country contemplates joining a European union amidst a surge of Western consumerism and a booming real estate market. The influx of Scandinavian investment aims to revitalize the economy, replacing the remnants of socialism with a modern, vibrant landscape. The story captures the tension between old and new, reflecting the hopes and challenges faced by a nation on the brink of significant change.