The Stuff That Never Happened

Praise

“[A] deceptively bouncing, ultimately wrenching novel [that] will grab you at page one….The phrase ‘summer read’ seems invented for this debut.”
—People

“Nicely written…enjoyable prose and keen characterization.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Both tender and exquisite, Maddie Dawson’s triumphant debut, The Stuff That Never Happened, is a pitch-perfect look into the choices we made in our past and the consequences that they carry long into the future. I loved every page.”
—Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author of The One That I Want
 
“The Stuff That Never Happened is unlike a lot of novels I read – I was never quite sure what was going to happen, and in that way, I found it compelling and compulsive to read.  Often when I’m halfway through a book, I’m fairly certain of the characters’ paths.  This time, the lives encountered were surprising, illuminating, and always believable.”
—Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales
 
“What a joy it is to discover Maddie Dawson. In the best storytelling tradition of writers like Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler, Dawson delivers a fast-paced, unflinching, often hilarious novel about the challenges of love, parenthood, and staying true to yourself in a marriage.”
—Holly Robinson, author of The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter: A Memoir
 
“’I can admit that I went there hungry for the drama of him, that I craved that heightened sense of loving and being loved again,’ Maddie Dawson’s middleaged heroine confesses.  In trying to make sense of one married woman’s relationship to her old flame, The Stuff That Never Happened is a paean to family happiness as much as romance.”
—Stewart O’Nan, author of Songs for the Missing