An excellent novel about the lives, loves, and secrets that make up a small town community
It’s 1990, and the lives of the inhabitants of Dalton, Maine play on.
Rose goes to work at the diner every day, her bruises hidden from both the customers and her two young boys. At a table she waits, Dr. Richard Haskell looks back on the one choice that’s charted his entire life, before his thoughts wander back to his wife, Trudy, and her best friend.
Trudy and Bev have been friends for longer than they can count, and something more than lovers to each other for some time now — a fact both accepted and ignored by their husbands. Across town, new mother Bridget lives with her high school sweetheart Nate, and is struggling with postpartum after a traumatic birth. And nearer still is teenager Greg, trying to define the complicated feelings he has about himself and his two close friends.
In most small towns, the private is also public. When one of Dalton’s own makes an unthinkable decision, the community is left reeling. In the aftermath, their problems, both small and large, reveal a deeper understanding of the lives of their neighbors, and remind us that no one is exactly who you think they are.
The Road to Dalton offers valuable understandings of what it means to be alive in the world — of pain and joy, conflict and love, and the endurance that comes from living.
A very quick review, today, for Shannon Bowring’s debut novel, The Road to Dalton. It’s the story of a small town in Maine, told in linked chapters, each told from the perspective of a different town resident. I really enjoyed this.
One of the things that really stands out from the start is Bowring’s prose, which is excellent throughout. The author really brings her characters alive on the page — giving readers insight into their inner lives as well as how they are out and about in the community.
The novel offers a snapshot of a particular moment in Dalton, as various characters lives collide and mesh. It’s a great story of how one shouldn’t believe everything we see of each other, because everyone has their own struggles and challenges that they are dealing with. The characters range across generations and professions, and each chapter builds our picture of the community and their shared connections. Bowring is particularly adept at offering alternative perspectives, as the focus switches between characters and how they see themselves and others. There’s heartbreak, adult and adolescent, hope and despair. Each time the perspective changed, I was sad to be leaving the character’s head, but I also quickly came to care about the new POV character.
If you are a fan of fiction that focuses on character, then I highly recommend you give this a try. I really enjoyed it.
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Shannon Bowring’s The Road to Dalton is out now, published by Europa Editions.
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Review copy received from publisher