On this episode Dan Simon discusses his novel Ashland.
Ashland is a real place. There are many places in the United States named Ashland, but they are not like Ashland, New Hampshire. It’s a mill town in the Lakes Region and is home to the six narrators that Dan Simon brings to us in this marvelous book.
In Ashland, Simon leaves behind basic narrative and plot conventions. Six people from Ashland speak. Each one shares a story about living in Ashland, about living through what they have been born into and revealing the ways they have survived the worst of in and managed with a sense of satisfaction and maybe even a measure of hometown pride. Certainly, there is love in what they share.
Carolyn is one of the narrators. She was born to a teenaged single mom and never knew her father. That loss and the relationships she has with her mother and paternal grandmother make Carolyn an introspective person. She is a noticer. She writes down her observations and experiences. She is a writer for this fact. But beyond that, she impresses her writing professor at Plymouth State University (another real place) with her talent.
What else is there to glean from Carolyn — but also the others — Jennie, Andy, Gordon, Edith and Geoff? Oh, plenty.
Stories are sacred — as sacred as our sense of home is. Ashland is a place where we’d all like to stay a while because of the things they share — and even the things they can’t quite say.
But, oh, what they do say. Dan Simon gives voices to characters we don’t see often enough in literature. They get to tell their own story. He gives them dimension and depth, intelligence, and compassion. They are flawed, too, like we all are, and the humanity he gives to them for the ways they grapple with life’s mysteries reveals to readers the power of literature and the sheer beauty in their struggle and their will to live life with meaning.
Dan Simon is the author of Ashland. It's published by Europa Editions. He is the founder and publisher of Seven Stories Press. You can read more about him here.
