Ashland [9798889662402]

Overview

“Dan Simon’s family drama ponders life’s joys and losses using a patchwork of first-person narratives...A refreshingly meditative, modern Our Town with a hat tip to the blessings of nature, books, and writing.”—Christian Science Monitor  

A deeply moving family story unfolding in richly evocative prose during the final decades of the American century, Ashland is a book of metamorphoses—of the dance between permanence and transformation. 

Ashland, New Hampshire, is a mill town in the lakes region that has seen better days but whose inhabitants possess a capacity for resilience and spirit of quiet defiance. These qualities seem to find an echo in the harsh but beautiful natural world around them. Six voices animate the story at the heart of Ashland and give voice to the town itself. Carolyn is twenty years old and at a turning point in her life; Gordon the octogenarian who arrived in Ashland in the twilight of his years; Andy is a local boy; Geoff is Carolyn's writing teacher at Plymouth State; Edith, Gordon's wife, inadvertently becomes Carolyn's spiritual guide and friend; and Jennie, Carolyn's aunt, seems to offer her niece a model for how to live. But things aren't always what they seem. 

Dan Simon’s debut novel brings to life six vivid characters and is both a tribute to the wild landscapes of New England and a lyrical ode to small-town America.