Review: The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring

Every person you meet is living a life that is simultaneously public and private. We see the surface of people but can't see into their hearts and minds unless they let us in. This is true in big cities and small towns alike. People are people everywhere. Shannon Bowring shows us this in her devastating, heartbreaking, and yet somehow hopeful, debut novel The Road to Dalton.

Set in 1990 small town Dalton, Maine, this is the story of a handful of people in the town whose lives are intertwined in so many ways and whose actions, big and small, impact each other and the town as a whole. There's Richard, the town's dependable only doctor who has never loved his job but who holds so many of the town's secrets, Trudy, his wife, the town librarian who is best friends and more (a fact conveniently ignored by Richard) with Bev. Bev is married to Bill, who might or might not know about Bev and Trudy. They have one son, Nate, who is married to his high school sweetheart Bridget, who is suffering quietly from severe post-partum depression after giving birth to their daughter earlier than expected. There's Rose, a waitress at the local diner, who is being abused by the deadbeat father of her two boys, and there's Greg, a young teenager who is confused by his feelings about himself and his closest friends. These struggling people are all a part of the tapestry of the town; some are fraying and ome are pulled too tightly but all are important to the overall story.

Although there is a major event that effects all of the characters lives, this is a character study with an ensemble cast. Even before the major event, so many of the characters stand at a crossroads in their lives, facing huge decisions and changes that will change everything for them. Each of them are shaped by very personnal and interior secrets they all keep to themselves quietly. Bowring writes her characters skillfully, showing the push and pull of community, empathizing with the heavy and hard things that they are facing: post partum depression, suicidal ideation, domestic abuse, marital problems, job/life dissatisfaction/apathy, homophobia, and more. So many of these characters cannot live their lives openly, with joy and fulfillment and yet there is still hopefulness in the end, quite a feat for any writer but certainly one for a debut author. Readers who like quiet, complex novels and don't mind slower pacing will find much to enjoy here.

Review: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

Although dystopian novels arent usually something I seek out, author Leif Enger writes so beautifully that I was eager to see how he handled such a topic. His newest novel, I Cheerfully Refuse, is not just a dystopian novel but an odyssey for our time.

In a world ruled by the wealthiest, subject to devastating weather events, and populated by small outposts of people living hard scrabble lives, Rainy (short for Ranier), a musician and odd jobber, and his beloved wife Lark, a bookseller, live mostly contented lives. They are good, resourceful people, liked by their community, and still capable of occasional dreams. When Lark brings home a refugee named Kellan who is being pursued by dark forces, Rainy looks the other way, especially since Kellan gives Lark a copy of I Cheerfully Refuse, the sole and rare novel she has yet to read by an author named Molly Thorn, who has played a large part in Rainy and Lark's life. But Kellan's presence and then absence brings Rainy into the crosshairs of those in charge of this terrible, not too future world, forcing him to flee on a small sailboat named Flower, into the uncertain, warming waters of Lake Superior searching for Lark.

As Rainy sails around, he encounters the remnants of civilization with people who are desperate, evil, rebellious, con artists, beaten down, and occasionally good and kind. He also rescues a young girl named Sol along his way and the two of them form an awkward sort of partnership as time goes on. They are battered by catastrophic weather events, faced with direct evidence of the great inequality of their society, and presented with true evil on their long and meandering odyssey.

Enger does a masterful job protraying the menace of a society that is crumbling, one that is governed by the amoral and the uncaring, that sees its people as dispensable and disposable. His characters are complete and worthy guides to his story. The setting of the novel, on the shores and waters of Lake Superior, is absolutely integral to the novel. And Enger has found an effective and disturbing way to highlight the impact of climate change on the world of the novel (and our own if we don't change course quickly!): Lake Superior, which famously does not give up her dead, is in fact, giving them up in this novel as the drowned of past decades and centuries bob to the surface in a regular, macabre display. It's not a comfortable story but it's not as bleak as it can sometimes seem either. Enger's writing is beautiful, easing the reader through the story, towards an earned and yet unknowable end. The novel is both grim and hopeful, centering oppression and the destruction of our planet and our society, but also celebrating love and chosen family. The novel can be a tad confusing at times but then the possible end of times would be, wouldn't it?