Dot

July 1, 2014
Dot lives with her fragile, beautiful mother, Alice, and her eccentric grandmother, Clarice, in an imposing, turreted house in the Welsh village of Druith. Despite their love for each other, the three suffer in silence, leading solitary lives greatly affected by issues of abandonment. Clarice hides her love for her late husband, killed in a sailing accident, with a rigid devotion to her possessions, while Alice has never fully recovered from being left by her husband when Dot was two. In fact, Dot knows nothing of her father, and despite the urging of her stalwart best friend, red-haired Mavis, she can't seem to work up the courage to ask her mom about him, even through she feels his absence so deeply. Told through the voices of the three women, their friends, and Dot's absent father, this novel is both warm and melancholy, showing how easy it is to keep secrets from those to whom you are closest. Hall (Everything and Nothing, 2011) offers many poignant insights on loss, but it is her achingly compassionate depiction of flawed individuals that makes this such an authentic story of connection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)