Books that complement each other, pt. 4: The Road to Dalton and You Are Here examine the complex web of lives in small communities

Shannon Bowring’s The Road to Dalton is an auspicious debut. She is operating in Richard Russo and Anne Tyler territory in this hybrid of a novel and interconnected stories. Set in the isolated town of Dalton in northern Maine in 1990, it depicts the multilayered and interdependent lives of several residents.

There’s library director Trudy and her husband Richard, who took over his father’s thriving medical practice. Bev is Trudy’s best friend, who has recently left her managerial position at an assisted living facility. Bev’s son Nate is a police officer who is discovering he may not be well suited to the job. His marriage to Bridget appears to be on solid ground until their baby girl arrives. Rose, the waitress at the diner, is in an abusive relationship with town troublemaker Tommy. Teenager Greg has a weight problem that is exacerbated by his confusion over being attracted to his childhood friend Sarah and her boyfriend Henry.

Bowring examines four marriages, a secret relationship, the trials of advancing age, guilt over things seen and unseen, and the nature of life in a town of 1,000 where people are closely connected for better or worse. She covers a lot of ground in 250 pages through crisp and revealing dialogue and telling details. And, as with Russo’s work, there is a distinct sense of time and place. Dalton is a town easily missed as you pass by momentarily and instantly forgotten by those who happen to notice it. But it’s home to people with complex inner lives and a tangled net of relationships.

You will care about these fully realized characters as they deal with their desires and disappointments. I was pleased to read that Bowring is already at work on a sequel.

After two award-winning short story collections (Faulty Predictions and Vanished), Karin Lin-Greenberg’s first novel, You Are Here, was published in May. It was People Magazine’s “Book of the Week,” an Indie Next pick, and was selected by Amazon Books Editorial Director Sarah Gelman for her “Sarah Selects” book club.

In You Are Here the community is a collection of people who work in a suburban Albany mall that is scheduled to close, possibly to be converted into apartments. Tina Huang owns a hair salon but dreams of returning to her true passion, art. Her son Jackson comes in after school every day to sweep up, do his homework, and secretly learn magic tricks. He befriends Maria, a high school student and aspiring actress who works in the food court. Tina’s most reliable customer is a lonely elderly woman named Ro, whose next-door neighbor, Kevin, manages the bookstore but is supposed to be finishing his dissertation. Kevin and his wife, who is Black, live with her mother. When her parents first moved to the neighborhood decades earlier, they were ostracized by Ro and everyone else.

The looming closure of the mall is the catalyst that causes their lives to become increasingly intertwined in complex and thought-provoking ways. In one sense, everyone is misunderstood because they are hiding key aspects of their true selves. But the glue that holds these people together is kindness, a latent community spirit, which shows up in unexpected ways. In the end, tragedy leads to surprising results.

Lin-Greenberg writes with great empathy for her quirky and very human characters. The addition of a droll sense of humor adds a light touch to this examination of identity, dreams deferred, and the ways we can help each other in a changing world.