'HIGH STRUNG' | A review Novel traces tragic life, unbelievable plot

Merle Winslow returns to her home in Ohio to reconnect pieces of her life.
By THERESA M. HEGEL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
"High Strung," by Quinn Dalton (Atria Books, $23)
Author Quinn Dalton, who has won awards for her short fiction, tries her hand at novel-writing in "High Strung."
The book details one woman's struggle to overcome her tragic past. At the beginning of the novel, Merle Winslow returns to her hometown -- Florence, a small, fictional suburb of Cleveland -- after 10 years of living a meaningless existence in England. She left behind a dead-end job at a publisher of pornographic novels and a dead-end relationship with one of the publishing company's most prolific writers.
Merle originally escaped to England to distance herself from the effects of her mother's untimely death, but eventually realizes that she never really left her old life; instead, she dragged it across the ocean with her "like an outfit that was ill-fitting and too revealing, but impossible to get rid of."
Once back in Ohio, Merle moves into a tiny apartment found for her by her father and attempts to reconnect with her estranged father, brother and grandmother. As the story progresses, Dalton gradually reveals intimate details about Merle's mother's death as well as other scandals from Merle's childhood.
As Merle comes to terms with these memories, she must also process her conservative father's whirlwind marriage to a rather ostentatious woman and her brother's switch from a successful career in marketing to one in performance art. She also experiences a budding romance with a local charter pilot.
Unbelievable, unrealistic
Although Dalton's prose is crisp and vivid, the story itself doesn't leave a lasting impression. The dialogue tries too hard to be clever and often ends up being merely incoherent. The characters' quirks are highly detailed, but they never seem very realistic, and the romance between Merle and her pilot is not fully explored and thus difficult to believe in.
Dalton's novel does show promise and some technical expertise, but the author has not fully been able to translate her short-story skills into those required to complete a full-length novel.
hegel@vindy.com