BOOKS: BETWEEN DUTY AND DESIRE

Minnesota in the winter of 1949 is a world where everyone knows his place, and that place is often church, where proprieties are observed and secrets have a charge. Richard and Sarah MacEwan are a sweet-natured, guilt-edged couple held together by custom, affection and a devotion as much to the settled lives they've created over 30 years as to each other. But when his younger brother dies, Richard finds among his unmarried sibling's papers an intimate letter from Sarah and is suddenly propelled beyond the limit of what he knows and what he wants to know. When, further, the couple's divorced...