The Road To Dalton by Shannon Bowring

"Neither of them ever looks forward to the Fraziers’ New Year’s Eve party. Trudy resents leaving the house after dark, especially in winter, and Richard hates the pretentious food Annette serves each year—salmon puffs, pâté. The woman can’t seem to take a hint that most of her partygoers would rather eat pigs-in-a-blanket or chips and dip. It’s not as if the people of Dalton need another reminder of the divide between them and the Fraziers, whose family has owned the lumber mill for three generations" - Shannon Bowring, The Road To Dalton

Thank you to Susan at Cue Card for recommending The Road To Dalton by Shannon Bowring.  And please check out Susan's website under blogs I follow for her excellent review of this novel.  And I agree with Susan.  The Road To Dalton (2023) is definitely 4.2 stars, if not more.  And this is Shannon Bowring's debut novel with a sequel coming in September which I plan to read.  

The book cover is deceptive though.  Dalton is not a sunny tranquil place but rather a small depressed town in Northern Maine.  It's the 1990's and the major industry is the lumber mill.  And when the book begins Richard the town doctor and his wife Trudy who runs the library are getting ready for a party they don't want to attend.  Their marriage is not going well either. 

And it will be at this party that we meet some of the major characters in the book.  Each of the subsequent chapters will focus on a different character letting us know who they are and where they are at in their lives.  There is Richard and Trudy, Trudy's best friend Bev, Bev's son Nate who works as a police officer.  Nate's wife Bridget suffering from postpartum depression.  There is Rose a waitress at the diner and her abusive husband Tommy.  And we meet three teenagers Greg, Henry and Angela involved in a separate storyline of their own.  

And then a tragic event happens halfway through The Road To Dalton that affects to a different degree all of the characters in this novel.  And the book ends one year later at another party around the Christmas season and we see how everyone has faired during the course of a tough year. 

The characters in The Road To Dalton are so well drawn.  Some I liked, particularly Richard Haskell, and others not so much.   But even the characters I didn't care for kept my interest.  The Road To Dalton is not a very long book and I read it straight through.  It never dragged for me.  And so I think if you liked Beartown and the novels of Richard Russo (who has praised this book), the Road To Dalton is worth checking, out.