The Dependents - Hardcover

Dion, Katharine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316473871 ISBN 13: 9780316473873

Publisher: Little, Brown US, 2018

Synopsis

For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Kent Haruf, an accomplished debut about a new widower, his fractured relationship with his daughter, and the decades-long friendship he and his late wife enjoyed with another couple whose companionship keeps him afloat after her death

The Dependents is the story of the Ashe family, and of Gene Ashe's relationship with his daughter, Dary, in the wake of his wife Maida's death. It is also the story of the decades-long friendship Gene and Maida shared with the Donnellys, Ed and Gayle, a couple whom they met in college and remained close with over the years.

Gene and Maida were married for almost fifty years, and after Maida's death, Gene, feeling unmoored and adrift, is haunted by the prospect that their marriage was not all it appeared to be and by a question he never asked Maida: "Is it, on the whole, a happy life?" As his memories of Maida diverge from Dary's, a rift between father and daughter grows from this sorrow and misunderstanding.

Dion's assured debut novel moves seamlessly between the history of Gene and Maida's long marriage, including the true north of their friendship with Ed and Gayle, and the present-day grief Gene experiences after losing his wife, as Ed and Gayle buoy his spirits. With their friendship as ballast, he at last begins to understand how deeply unknown his own daughter is to him. Even as he is grateful for the memory of joy, he must also confront lingering questions about secrets held through the years, and about the wounds and betrayals in both his marriage and his friendship with Ed and Gayle.

The Dependents is the best and most moving kind of drama, one that drops us intimately into the expanse of another family and thereby reflects back our own. We are reminded again of the ways in which we deceive ourselves into believing we fully know the people we love, and must eventually reckon with what we want to be true versus what we know to be true

About this title

Review:

"This richly textured family drama is a marvel of a novel. With great subtlety and tact, it evokes the love, devotion, and sadness that bind a grieving father to his troubled daughter. Its cumulative power comes from the depth of Dion's entry into her characters and the vividness of her prose that brings them to life. The Dependents is one of the best debut novels I've read in years, and a very auspicious one.--Adam Haslett, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Imagine Me Gone

"The Dependents is a big book, one that grapples with important questions through generations--the way we live now, the way we may have chosen to live then--and the consequences. Dion's intelligence and ambition truly shine through sentence after sentence."--Kate Walbert, National Book Award finalist and author of A Short History of Women

"When this book arrived in the mail, its author, Katharine Dion, was a person unknown to me. Not anymore. The Dependents is a fine debut, full of intelligent writing and free of the canine desire to please that afflicts so much contemporary writing. And yet this book pleases on many levels. I will look for Ms. Dion's work in the future."--Jeffrey Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Middlesex and The Marriage Plot

"Dion's melancholy, meditative debut dwells in the head of Gene Ashe, a widower after 49 years of marriage.... At this novel's most successful moments, the depiction of Gene's mental state achieves the eloquence and insight of C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed: 'It amazed him he could still remember so much about the particular way she had inhabited the world. Such intimacy, to think of these things, to know exactly the way she had cared for her own body or moved it through space.' Intelligent and profound."--Kirkus

"The Dependents is a brilliant and absorbing novel that's not afraid to ask the big questions: What is the source of happiness? How do we recover from loss? How much do we really know about the people we love? This is a masterly portrait of grief written by an author of enormous sensitivity and insight."--Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix

"Death and unavoidable truth shatter the serene surface of a man's golden years in Dion's fine debut...The narrative travels back and forth through Gene's life as he tries to pick apart the performative from the heartfelt acts of love. The result is a beautiful story of communication and commitment."--Publishers Weekly

"Dion's debut novel is a seamless exploration of Gene's past life, long marriage, deep friendships, and present-day struggles through loss and understanding. Her rich and nuanced characters combine with her exceptional writing to create a powerful and intimate look at the inner workings of one family. The Dependents is a deeply satisfying examination of the gulf between what we want to believe and the truth, and readers will be eager for more from Dion."--Booklist (starred review)

"Dion builds tension by revealing bits and pieces of the saga gently and cleverly, carefully propelling the action onward even when Gene is considering the past."--Oakland Magazine

"In this first novel, set in a small New Hampshire town a few years ago, Gene Ashe is mourning the sudden loss of his beloved wife of many years. Now that Maida is gone, he is alone; his daughter, Dary, is a single mother living on the other side of the country. Gene has always wondered why he and Dary don't get along as well as he would like. Now his grief adds to his concern about his daughter and granddaughter Annie. To complicate matters, Gene becomes involved with his caretaker, a pleasant but emotionally remote older woman. He can't stop thinking about the past, especially his relationship with longtime friends Ed and Gayle Donnelly. Gene broods over former regrets as he makes a winter visit alone to an old haunt, the lake cabin that his family used to share with Ed and Gayle and their children. What if he is remembering the past all wrong? VERDICT Promising young novelist Dion portrays a lonely older man in a sympathetic, believable way in this insightful story about friendship, love, and loss."--Leslie Patterson, Library Journal

"Katharine Dion's singular debut is a polished tapestry rich in character and insight."--Shelf Awareness

Book Description:

For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Kent Haruf, an accomplished debut about a new widower, his fractured relationship with his daughter, and the decades-long friendship he and his late wife enjoyed with another couple whose companionship keeps him afloat after her death

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown US
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0316473871
• ISBN 13: 9780316473873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256