#emptynesters#drama#midlife#comingofage#familytransition#college#parenthood#growingup This novel, like the 1982 American Book Award winning novel, Dale Loves Sophie To Death, is the story of Dinah & Martin Howells and their children. If, in the interlude, a tragedy has befallen them, they have, nonetheless, cohered as a family. During a summer of transition, the family must adjust to the imminent departure of eighteen-year-old David for his first year of college, and Dinah must struggle against her nearly paralyzing sense of impending loss. Meanwhile, she alternately suffers from, and is enraged by, David’s inexplicable displays of anger & unkindness. Anyone has been a parent or a child can identify with the Howellses. They are a family of complex, reflective personalities, and they all must deal with the sometimes shattering, often unexpected, and always inevitable evolution of the life of a family.