Dale Loves Sophie to Death

by Robb Forman Dew

Robb Forman Dew's cult first novel explores themes of familial and romantic bonds as it tells the story of a woman whose husband stays behind in New England while she and their children spend the summer in her Midwestern hometown.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Literature

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Granddaughter of US poet, essayist and political writer John Crowe Ransom. Godfather was US poet, essayist, academic Robert Penn Warren. Grew up between Baton Rouge, LA and Ohio, well-connected to Kenyon Review writers and artists. Attended but did not graduate from Louisiana State University.

Her first novel - Dale Loves Sophie to Death - won the 1982 National Book Award. She has taught at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and has received Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2007 she was awarded an honorary degree by Kenyan College.

Since 1977 Robb Forman Dew has been living in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where her husband Charles B. Dew is now the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College. They have two sons.

Reviews

[Jessica Medved · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was not at all a fan of this book, which is surprising because I am an easy to please reader.

I felt as if the book was literally about nothing. The wife and husband have different plans for the summer and the book is about what each of them do and think during that time. But there is no real plot point or focus. No issue to be resolved or feelings to discover. No character growth. It is literally about the two months they are apart and that is all.

There were a handful of well written prose in this book but other than those few I was unimpressed. The dialogue was not compelling and there was so much unneeded detail. It was just rough to try and read!

I did a full blog review - but it does have spoilers so beware: http://justjessthough.blogspot.com/20...

[Lanea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was 17 when I first tried to read this book, and none of it stuck to me. I didn't understand the protagonist's need to spend time in her small home town when it obviously made her sick, or her need to reconcile with a father who was distant and trying; I hated the husband for his disloyalty; I blamed them both for all of their failings and failures, and I saw no reason for those two people to be married.

Oh, what a difference over a decade makes. With some experience, and age, I get it now. I know why people go to home instead of away from it. I know what it feels like to suddenly remember you're not still a teenager, and that your adult choices are yours even if they're not all perfect. I have watched how a hyper-critical group of outsiders can tear women apart for each and every decision they make as parents and wives and daughters. Some books really do make more sense to adults, and this is one of them.

Dew has a very light hand with her prose, which I particularly appreciate. I wish I had one, or that I could maintain that skill for more than a page at a time. And she remembers to love her characters even when they're wrong or lazy or average. I hope I can be a tenth the writer she is one day.

[Claire (Clairby11xxx) · Rating 1 out of 5]

(2/10) This might be a bit unfair seeing as I only read a chapter and a half but I was so bored I just didn't care enough to continue, if the whole book continues in the same minute introspection I'm glad I stopped, give me a book with a story anyday!

From what I read I hated Dinah, she cares far too much about herself and her own thoughts. The only person I liked was her mother because she picked up on the fake illness and rolled her eyes at it exactly as I did, this is definitely not my kind of book.

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the title I was expecting some deep passionate story, but nothing really happens. I kept waiting for a real story line, but instead got a character study. It focuses on the unresolved conflicts between a woman in her 40's(?) and her parents. Since I am past that age and my parents are no longer in this world, the family tensions and resentments are not relevant to me now. There seemed to be a lot more irritation than happiness in this family.

[Bess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had 6 hours in an airplane and NOTHING else to read but this book. I read the airline magazine and the safety & exit pamphlets numerous times and still I could not bring myself to finish this book. I even tried to skip around hoping that a chapter would grab my interest and nothing. Note to self: make sure you've read some of the book before committing to it and bringing it on an airplane.

[Pam Christison · Rating 1 out of 5]

What horrible characters. And so much angst! Nonstop, it was awful. I only finished because a morbid sense of curiosity impelled me to keep reading and see if anything ever happened. Answer: not really.

[Anesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something lovely about this portrait of gracious living in a small Ohio town. The intimate, episodes, elegantly detailed and loosely interwoven, recalls Virginia Woolf. Nothing much happens, although love manages to be affirmed in spite of family dysfunction.

[Fay · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was pretty boring.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martin and Dinah, a married couple in their late 30s, with three children under the age of 11, spend each summer apart. She returns to the town in which she grew up in Ohio, where her mother, father, and older brother live. Her parents are divorced. Marin stays behind in their home in the Berkshires teaching at a local college and editing a periodical he and a friend founded a ew years ago. If I had to described the novel n a few words, I would say that it is a story about family, marital relationships and confronting one's past, present and future. This is not a plot driven work. When one finishes reading the novel, you have come to know this family and their issues quite well, as well as the small Ohio town in which Dinah lived until she went away for college. The writing and pace are slow
, but rewarding with descriptions of characters and setting. This reader came away with a lot of information and knowledge about the family and especially Martin and Dinah and the middle child, Toby. If you enjoy Alices Munro's writing, you likely will enjoy "Dale Loves Sophie to Death".

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quotable:

She had particularly remembered the immense pleasure her father had taken in the startling panorama of the blossoming gladioli, which speared the air with their scentless and waxy height and color. He had cut masses of them for the house, but Polly disdained them. She claimed that they had no delicacy, and Dinah thought, now, that that had been a telling point. Her father could not or would not see how gauche such blatant flowers would be to Polly's aesthetic tastes.

Before she had left adolescence and found out a little more, it had seemed to her that dancing was far sexier than sex. And she looked around the room now, remembering how much they had danced and how addictive it had been. Dancing was all expectation; dancing was testing sex out; it was the first matching of rhythms.

[Victoria · Rating 1 out of 5]

A friend loaned me this book as a "you gotta read". Let me first say if someone asked me what this book was about I would have to say - marriage. There are many couples (none of them named Dale or Sophie) and we view their marriages. Our main characters are Dinah and Martin. Dinah goes back to her family home with the kids for the summer and Martin stays to work at their current home. I didn't like any of the characters so therefore I didn't care what happens to them. Dinah was indifferent to her kids and Martin. Martin was wishy washy. Oh hum! Nothing much happens to move the story a long. It's a boring mess.

[Catherine Bruzdzinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book that told the story of miserable and mentally unstable people and their family dynamics. I wouldn't recommend it for young readers, but it is a good book for people who think they are the only ones going through life's downs.

I strongly recommend not reading this when you have doubts about your partner or have a strong relationship with your children. There is some violence towards children, which many readers may not enjoy.

It is, however, a well written book that tells the story of a mentally unstable single mother.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set in Enfield, OH and West Bradford, MA. 227 pp. Read free PDF at https://archive.org/details/daleloves.... This was just ok for me. I wasn’t really engaged by any of the characters with the possible exception of Toby. I found it on the boring side mostly and can’t say I’d recommend it.

Dale Loves Sophie to Death: A Novel

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dinah is age 36 and still trying to understand the melancholic foundations of her childhood, as she returns every summer with her own three children to burrow into memories of her hometown of Enfield, OH. Her introspection matches her malaise, both potentially tedious for the reader, but it was a thoughtful meander through issues of family and love.

[Ceevee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am currently reading this book. The title caught my attention, and the meaning of the title, I suppose, is eventually revealed, but I am about ready to move on to another book. I do not mind character driven books, in fact I prefer them, but I am finding the writing style plodding and too formal for my taste. ( The flavor of the previous book I read is sticking with me and I can't shake it.) The setting is a small town in Ohio, near Columbus, and I am imagining Granville, O. That's what keeps me reading.

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book,which indicates and open mind. Finished it and still wondered as I had through why. The protagonist seems self-absorbed, martyred, perpetually angry and in short, not like able. The husband is similar, as are the other characters. Too bad. I usually like debut novels and this won the National Book Award. I must be missing something.

[Miranda Marchese · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I can't see how this won the National Book Award. If I were being more charitable, I would say that it was an attempt to do a Mrs. Dalloway-esque novel with a setting and time period update, but Robb Forman Dew is no Virginia Woolf. Parts of the book are good, but other parts go by at a snail's pace. I didn't really care about any of the characters in the novel, especially the husband- I felt like his parts of the novel weren't really needed, or could be eliminated without changing anything. A begrudging 2 stars, as I didn't *hate* it, but probably wouldn't recommend it either.

[Hannah Carolus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful novel that interrogates what it means to grow up, and what it means to mother; Dew's prose do well to aid her novel's overarching theme. It seems that the point is not the plot, but it's how the characters move through their world and how they interact with each other that is the essence of this story.

[Stefanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

National Book Award winner. Hmmmmm. Neurosis wins the day. I kept waiting for revelation, not happiness necessarily. But nothing came at all.

[Janewbeaver]

this was wonderful
wish she had written more

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is definitely not her best book, even though it’s the award winner! Nothing mych happens to a bunch of somewhat unlikeable people. Read her other books instead.

[Tracee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ooof, why is this so highly rated? I didn’t get anything out of it. Don’t waste your time.
Oh, and the title refers to a billboard. That’s it. That’s the story.

[Brandi Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing for this "story" was beautiful. I enjoyed the author's descriptions of the setting and the character's thoughts, but this was more of a character study than a true story. I learned a lot about Dinah and why she was stunted from her childhood, but I didn't really feel like there was much of a plot or true resolution. The three-star rating is mainly for the quality of the writing.

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at the library on a whim, and ended up reading nearly the whole thing while standing in the aisle. Weighing in at a slim 217 pages, Dale Loves Sophie to Death is a quick read... but not a light one.

From the jacket blurb:
"Dew's astonishing debut illuminates the varieties of romantic love and the unexpected rewards of family life as it tells the story of a woman whose husband stays behind in New England while she and their three young children return to her midwestern town to spend the summer. "

Interesting enough, but that's just the beginning. As the story begins, we meet Dinah, the first protagonist, and learn that this trip is one she's taken each summer for the past eight years, using the time away from her 'real life' to reconnect with childhood and family. We meet her mother, a decidedly unsympathetic character, and her father (who is even more unsympathetic), and wonder where this woman who is trying so hard to be the 'good' wife and mother came from.

Her 'other half' is Martin, her husband of many years. In him, we find a good man and husband, but one that occasionally finds himself unmoored in life, searching for who knows what.


Dinah and Martin have come to rely on the two weeks apart as a time to recharge and remember how and why they originally came together. We see their separate journeys on this particular summer, as Dinah deals with a crisis of faith in her family, and Martin deals with a crisis of faith in his marriage.

I've often looked for a story about a real marriage, dealing with real emotions and the tiny things that make up every day life. This is that book. Though the writer's style is a little bit pedantic at times, she's got the petty irritations and everyday joys of marriage life down. Upon parting, both partners have a similar feeling: From Martin,

"...and these summers they parted mute with bewildered misery, feeling at once that they were being forced apart and yet each anxious to be away from the other."

From Dinah:

"She looked at his clean head, silhouetted against the car window, and she wanted to weep at the misunderstanding between them. There was no one, no others but the children, to whom she was more tied."

Do those sentiments sound familiar? They do to me. And they're just the tip of the iceberg of, "Good God! I know exactly how that feels!"

In the course of the book, Dinah comes to a sort of truce with her parents and a serenity with her own life that rings so very true, while Martin's brief foray into infidelity (one that didn't even horrify me as much as such scenes often do, because it is written and explained so well) ends with his realization of how very blessed he really is. From the last page:

"...with the children in the back seat and his wife beside him, he realized with wonder and relief that he was happy."

Dew's style is a little stiff, at times, but she fills her story with the little details of family life that ring so very true. She also never flinches at the truth of a long term relationship: the push/pull of parting and the awkwardness of reunions after a long separation are dealt with honestly. I loved this line:

"But always at the end of their summer separation they could only simulate, at first, their remembered affection, because, inescapably, there was a trace of shyness between them."

YES! Truth! The thing is, though, they do make that effort, knowing that life will return to normal.

This book was a welcome surprise. I'd not heard of story, nor author, but found it absorbing. In fact, I found myself, days later, worrying about one of their children (that was not a normal flu, I just know it!).

That, my friends, is writing. I give this four coffee cups out of five.

[Stefanie Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

""

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel follows a family through a hot summer in Ohio. Nothing tremendously dramatic happens and the characters are all fairly normal Americans going about their lives but by the end of the book we feel we know them inside and out.
This book is beautifully written and Dew subjects her cast of characters to deep analysis -- she is much more penetrating and observant when examining her invented people than most real humans are about themselves. She sees everything but she refuses to judge.
The author remains studiedly neutral even when the husband has a brief and foolish affair and the wife willfully neglects the health of one of her kids.
It's a very well-composed study of ordinary people living ordinary American lives in the late 20th century, with its pluses and minuses, it's strong and weak points. By the end of the book, the reader reacts almost like one of the characters looking back at one of those golden summers of childhood and wondering why it was so wonderful.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, with penetrating observations, but not a fast action plot, so will be frustrating for those who want a story. More a study of a family in the trying circumstances of daily living.

The title comes from graffiti scrawled on a highway overpass. It becomes a landmark for the family, signifying they're approaching home, and a touchstone for thought for the main character of the book. It reminded me of the restaurant in Syracuse, I think, called Pinhead Susan's. For years, there had been graffiti on an overpass saying "Susan is a pinhead". The graffiti was eventually removed, but the restaurant near the overpass immortalized it in their name.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel explores the inner life of an at-home mom who spends her summers in her hometown in Ohio with her kids while her husband stays at home on the East Coast. In Ohio, she stays in a house across the street from her estranged father. She has issues, and she and her husband have issues. It's well written, but the subject matter is not really riveting.

[Linda Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sensitively written novel, which I first read in the early eighties, bears up well after twenty-five years. The ways in which personal tensions arise and are resolved in families and in marriages are described intelligently and carefully.

[Gretchen Temby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would certainly read more from this author. I was very engaged by the fascination and beauty she found in the small things in life.