The Dependents

April 2, 2018
Death and unavoidable truth shatter the serene surface of a man’s golden years in Dion’s fine debut, set in the hills of New Hampshire. Gene Ashe’s wife dies suddenly, leaving Gene to sort through the physical and emotional remnants of their life. Their 49-year marriage was entwined from the start with college friends Ed and Gayle Donnelly, but Gene is beginning to question the nature of their friendship. As they reminisce about raising their children in the same small town, Gene is forced to reconsider past events and grapple with choices that left him disconnected from family and friends. Gene’s daughter, Dary, meanwhile, remains emotionally distant from him and doesn’t want to hear his entreaties about why she should get married instead of having a child as a single parent. Amid his grief and the realization that he can’t remember when life started to feel so hollow, Gene stumbles into an unexpected relationship. But without his wife’s companionship, new doubts constantly arise, and Gene must understand what in his life is worth living for and what made him worth loving: “love was not enough... but now it was too late for him to adopt a new delusion.” 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.

April 1, 2018
An introverted older man deals with the grief of losing his wife.Dion's melancholy, meditative debut dwells in the head of Gene Ashe, a widower after 49 years of marriage. It opens with a scene at the beach that conveys both Gene's crankiness and his melancholy: "The beach was crowded, a cluttered heap of pink skin, chipped toenail polish, ice chests, crumpled tin foil..."; a group of teenage girls beside him emits "a collective shriek that he vaguely recognized as a form of laughter"; "His interest in other people lay primarily in the mystery of their happiness." Through this lens of gloom, we gradually collect the details of his life. He has one adult child, a daughter, who is perennially irritated with him, and a close friendship with a couple he and his wife have known since their college days, though he is just as habitually annoyed by the husband as his daughter is with him. Adding to his woes at the beginning of the novel is the need to write a eulogy for his wife; even with the help of a how-to site on the internet, he is unable to get past four words: "Something definite was lost." When the memorial service does occur, he is hurt and bewildered by the speeches given by his daughter and by his wife's best friend. At this point, since Gene's health is failing, his daughter hires him a caretaker who at first seems to offer not just housekeeping, but relief from loneliness. As the weeks and months go by, Gene sorts through his memories, some of them perplexing and seeming to suggest that his wife had secrets from him. 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 but quite depressing.

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May 1, 2018

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, Rehoboth, MA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2018
Gene and Maida had a long and satisfying marriage. But when Maida dies suddenly, Gene begins to wonder whether their time together was all that he thought it was. With the help of his lifelong friends Ed and Gayle, Gene attempts to work through his grief, focusing on happy memories and fighting lingering doubts. Gene's daughter, Dary, however, further challenges his version of the past and presents a side of Maida he knew nothing about, deepening the long-standing rift between father and daughter. Gene's unsettling feelings for his new caregiver create more confusion as he struggles to balance his grief with the unexpected hope for a new love. 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)