The Book of Someday

Dixon’s second novel (after The Language of Secrets) weaves together, across four decades, the lives of three driven, tormented women connected by a deeply buried secret. Novelist Livvi Gray survived an abusive childhood at the hands of a disturbed father and his enabling second wife. Micah, a brilliant photographer, discovers she’s dying of cancer, a diagnosis that feels like karmic payback for committing an act of betrayal that helped launch her career. AnnaLee, a heartsick young wife and mother in the 1980s, struggles with anger at her husband, who seems content to let her support the family. Dixon follows these three separate threads, weaving them ever more closely together. One sees the ending coming, but not the how or the why until the right moment, which makes an impact. Dixon gives Livvi’s affair with a married man too much focus, not drawing a strong enough comparison or contrast to AnnaLee’s relationship. The use of present tense, no matter what the decade, harkens to Dixon’s television-writing background, and pushes the reader out of the narrative at times, failing to make full use of the power of prose. Agent: Alice Tasman, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. (Sept.)