Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Roman Grady’s family has been touched by tragedy and trouble more times than seems possible.  His maternal grandparents were killed in a car accident, his father committed suicide, his mother is a recovering alcoholic, and he and his girlfriend, parents of four-year-old Mason, are drifting further apart each day.

Roman had been a graduate student in journalism at New York University with a bright future ahead of him.  An essay he wrote won a major prize, and he was on his way to California to accept a prestigious fellowship at the Los Angeles Times.

But then things changed in a major way.  His girlfriend Ashley got pregnant, and Roman decided to defer the fellowship for one year, and then one year became four, and they’re still living in Upstate New York with Tara, Roman’s mother.

Tara had not been a good, caring mother for Roman during his early years, and now she’s determined to make up for it with her grandson.  She has become his primary caregiver, although that has made for some friction in the relationship with her son’s girlfriend.  Tara believes that Roman and Ashley are both suffering from depression and aren’t the best parents.  Both are working part-time jobs, and their combined incomes are barely holding things together.

Ashley and Roman had agreed when they started dating that theirs would be an open relationship, and that included Ashley’s lesbian relationship with Bella, a high school friend.  Then the two women had a falling out and hadn’t spoken in years, so Roman is stunned to discover that Ashley had been to a party at Bella’s home the previous evening and that it wasn’t the first time they’d been together.

Roman, however, is in no position to point a finger at his girlfriend as he spent the night with an old flame in Manhattan, never calling home to tell his mother or his girlfriend where he was.  Thus when he’s on the way home the following morning and gets a call from Ashley’s boss at the local coffee shop to say Ashley hasn’t turned up for work and isn’t answering her phone, Roman isn’t unduly upset.

However, she’s not at the home they share with Tara and John, Tara’s fiancé, and she’s not at the gym where she teaches yoga.  When Roman calls his mother, he discovers that Tara hadn’t seen Ashley since the night before.  Roman drives to Bella’s house on the chance Ashley is there.

After he and Bella’s cousin look through the house to no avail, they go outside to the sloping lawn that ends at the Hudson River.  Down at the bottom is Ashley, dead.

I Dreamed of Falling has many what ifs and if onlys, the thoughts we all have about how our lives would have been different if we hadn’t done some of the things we did.  As Roman mourns, he discovers that Ashley had kept not only her renewed relationship with Bella a secret but her plan for a major life change as well.

Julia Dahl has written a truly suspenseful book, one in which the characters continue to make decisions that are not well thought out and that continue to affect every part of their lives.  Roman, Ashley, and Tara are definitely flawed, almost constantly doing the wrong things, but they are human and trying their best.

You can read more about Julia Dahl at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

One Response to “I DREAMED OF FALLING by Julia Dahl: Book Review”