A deeply moving family story unfolding in richly evocative prose and a poetic portrayal of a town in decline during the final decades of the American century, Ashland is a book of metamorphoses—of the dance between permanence and transformation.
In Ashland, New Hampshire, Carolyn, born of a teenage pregnancy, grows up alongside her mother Ellie, her aunt Jennie, and her cousins. Ashland is the type of place that most people plan to leave, but few do. Beauty can be found in small things—the trees in the wind, the sky’s particular shade of blue, a swim in the river, love, and family. But life can often be unforgiving and solace hard to come by. Carolyn reconciles the losses in her own life with an education at Plymouth State, the local university, and then by capturing in words her world and the people who inhabit it.
Recalling the novels of Richard Russo, Paul Harding, Marilynne Robinson, and Elizabeth Strout, Ashland is a debut novel of great intensity and poetry told in the voices of many vivid characters and, through them, in the voice of Ashland itself. --Publisher's blurb
About the author:
Dan Simon is the founder and editor-in-chief of Seven Stories Press. Ashland is his debut novel. Previously, Dan co-wrote a biography of the American revolutionary Abbie Hoffman that was published by Jeremy Tarcher, and translated several books from French, including Pascal Bonafoux’s Van Gogh: Self-Portraits. He divides his time between New Hampshire and New York.
Join Dan on Wed., March 4, 2026 at 6:30 pm at Gibson's Bookstore where he will be discussing his debut novel.
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