Shannon Bowring has been nominated for a Pushcart and a Best of the Net, and was selected for Best Small Fictions 2021. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast low-residency program and currently resides in Bath, Maine. The Road to Dalton is her first novel.

From debut author Shannon Bowring comes a novel of small-town America that Pulitzer-winner Richard Russo calls, “measured, wise, and beautiful.”

 In the last weeks of 1989, a fender-bender breaks the silence on an icy dark road outside Dalton, Maine—setting in motion events that will ripple throughout the town in ways no one can foresee.

 As a rule, nothing much changes in Dalton. Rose goes to the diner, hiding bruises from her customers. At a nearby table, Richard reflects on the choice that’s charted his life. His wife, Trudy, and her best friend Bev continue the romance that exists within their long friendship—a secret known and ignored by their husbands. Bridget and Nate are raising their newborn daughter after a difficult birth, and on the edge of town, newcomer and aspiring writer Alice struggles to fit in.

 When the consequences of the accident play out, the community is left reeling. In the aftermath, their own problems reveal a deeper knowledge of the lives of their neighbors—reminding us no one is exactly who we think they are.

The Road to Dalton offers valuable understandings of what it means to be alive in the world: of pain and joy, conflict and love, and the endurance that comes from living.