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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 deathThe 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 the author
Katharine Dion was born in Oakland, California. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was awarded the Iowa Arts Fellowship. She has also been a MacDowell Fellow and the recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. She lives in Berkeley, California. The Dependents is her first novel.
Summary
One of TIME magazine's best summer reads, a "wise" (Entertainment Weekly) and "resplendent" (O, The Oprah Magazine) debut that follows a new widower confronting the truth about his long marriage.
After the sudden death of his wife, Maida, Gene is haunted by the fear that their marriage was not all it appeared to be. Alongside Ed and Gayle Donnelly, friends since college days, he tries to resurrect happy memories of the times the two couples shared, raising their children in a small New Hampshire town and vacationing together at a lake house every summer.
Meanwhile, his daughter, Dary, challenges not only his happy version of the past but also his view of Maida. As a long-standing rift between them deepens, Gene starts to understand how unknown his daughter is to him -- and how enigmatic his wife was as well. And a lingering suspicion seizes his mind that could upend everything he thought he knew.
Katharine Dion's assured debut moves seamlessly between Gene's present-day journey and the long history of a marriage and friendship. Rich and wonderfully alive, The Dependents is the most moving kind of drama, an intimate glance into the expanse of family life and the way we must all eventually bridge the chasm between what we want to believe and what we know to be true.
Foreword
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
