IN DAHLIA'S WAKE

Author: Yona Zeldis McDonough ISBN: 0385503628 4/2005 FICTION Publisher: DOUBLEDAY

> Rick and Naomi fell in love in college, married soon afterward, and weathered the setbacks in their lives—including Naomi’s repeated miscarriages—secure in their love for one another. With the birth of their daughter, Dahlia, everything finally glides into place. Their renovated brick house in Brooklyn is close to Rick’s podiatry practice, and when Dahlia is old enough for kindergarten, Naomi begins teaching at the private school where her daughter is enrolled. Then, in a single unbelievable moment, their close-knit life is utterly shattered. While on an outing with Rick, Dahlia is killed in a bizarre automobile accident, and Rick and Naomi retreat into grief-stricken isolation. A moving portrait of ordinary people in heartbreaking circumstances, In Dahlia’s Wake explores the ache of loss and the search for solace. In herdesperate desire to find a remedy, Naomi leaves her teaching job to volunteer at the hospital where Dahlia died and finds herself drawn to Michael McBride, the doctor who delivered the devastating news. Rick, haunted by guilt about the accident and tormented by Naomi’s emotional and physical withdrawal, falls into an affair with his office manager, the divorced mother of a young son. The distance between Rick and Naomi widens until another twist of fate and the unexpected insight offered by Naomi’s mother—who struggles with her increasing bouts of memory loss—awaken them to the value of their own lives and to the true meaning of family.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

IN DAHLIA'S WAKE is a deeply emotional look at the loss, grief and eventual acceptance one must face after the traumatic loss of a child. It's not a glossed over or prettified look, but instead deals sympathetically and realistically with the emotional upheaval associated with sudden death and the broken lives it often leaves behind.

Ms. McDonough covers a lot of territory here. How that one loss of life dramatically affects each of the characters left behind, whether they be the mother, father, grandparent or physician, is at times a heart wrenching and intense journey that also becomes a learning experience. It's a side of loss we sometimes think about but don't often dwell upon, until we experience it for ourselves.

We are only offered short glimpses of Dahlia, which is fine, since it's not her "being" that is instrumental here but what she leaves in her wake. Naomi, her mother, handles the loss of her daughter the only way she knows how: by living mechanically day to day, withdrawing from the husband who loves her and immersing herself in voluteering at the hospital where Dahlia died. Rick, her husband, is perplexed by her actions and rejection and finds his solace elsewhere, though not intentionally at first. Buried in guilt and emotionally lost, he still loves his wife and doesn't equate his affair with being unfaithful to her. It's one of the more fascinating aspects of this book, this difference in mind set and coping mechanisms between a man and woman that the author reveals and explores so well.

The character who stands out the most, however, is Estelle, Dahlia's elderly grandmother. Ms. McDonough takes us deep inside her thoughts and memories as Estelle struggles with off and on bouts of dementia. One minute she's lost in confusion and times long forgotten, fighting for some breath of sanity, and the next she's both lucid and rational, recounting her own life's trials and dispensing pearls of wisdom to the daughter she sometimes forgets.

This is by no means an "easy" read, with no happy-ever-after or pat ending for anyone. Each character's life leaves off a bit unfinished, leaving to the reader's imagination where these devastated people will all go from here. IN DAHLIA'S WAKE is a thought provoking, emotionally charged story that no reader will soon be able to forget.

Nancy Davis