Cascade: A Novel
Slate:  Best Books, Editors' Choice"The protagonist is Desdemona Hart, a woman drowning in the choices she's been forced to make: a marriage of necessity to save her father's legacy and put a roof over his head as he dies......trouble escalates, and so will the rate at which you turn the pages. Cascade is perfect for sitting by the fire on a chilly day contemplating the immutability of things." Boston Globe, "Best of the New"When state engineers created the Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930s, four Central Massachusetts towns disappeared beneath the waters. In her debut novel, Cascade, Ashland resident Maryanne O'Hara chronicles the fate of one such (fictionalized) town and its inhabitants, notably Desdemona Hart Spaulding, an ambitious artist trapped in a loveless marriage. O'Hara, a former Ploughshares fiction editor, shapes her protagonist's story to pose questions like: If art is not lastingly valuable, what is? Ponder that over your next glass of tap water. People Magazine, "People Pick"&"Great Reads, New in Paperback"Desdemona Hart returns to rural Cascade to find her dad in failing health & her childhood home in foreclosure. A gifted artist who's studied in Paris & longs to work in New York, Dez instead marries local Asa Spaulding, who has loved her fiercely all her life. "She suspected he was secretly grateful when their fortunes turned upside down," O'Hara writes. "It gave him the chance to step in and save them." Gorgeously written & involving, Cascade explores the age-old conflict between a woman's perceived duty and her deepest desires."The Boston Globe Sunday Book Review--What do we have to give up to be whom we yearn to be? O'Hara's richly satisfying new novel grapples with small town limitations vs. big city sparkle, as well as the twists and turns in life that can either make or derail us. What makes the story all the more engrossing is that it's set against the eerie backdrop of 1930s Cascade, Mass., a town about to be flooded to make way for a reservoir. CASCADE unfolds like a Shakespearean tragedy, with an ending you won't see coming.Galley Talk: Publisher's WeeklyMaryanne O'Hara's Cascade is a tightly woven story about the choices a young woman makes and the far-reaching consequences of those decisions. With an artist's eye, O'Hara has vividly captured the conflicting emotions that churn behind the human face.