The Way Life Should Be - by William Dameron (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Two fathers embarking on the second half of their lives together. Two families in the midst of transformation. A warm, funny, and unforgettable novel about the joys and fears of moving on.

Husbands Thomas and Matt are enjoying a second-chance marriage after coming out, leaving their wives, and finding happiness in a summer cottage on the southern coast of Maine. They've kept a tenuous peace with their exes. Thomas toils in the garden. There is an ease to their love. This is the way life should be.

But it's not long before their three children--each nearing adulthood and fleeing personal crises of their own--descend on their fathers' bliss. The two-bedroom getaway has just enough space for Thomas and Matt's future. Now they must make room for the past, and all its drama.

During an unintentional family reunion, old lives, broken and in need of repair, converge with the new. Over the course of an unforgettable summer, two fathers and their children will come together. They'll understand what life still can be. Pain, anger, flaws and all, they're determined to forge a loving way forward.

Review Quotes

Finalist in Fiction for the 2024 Maine Literary Awards

The Zibby Award winner for Best Family Drama

"Dameron manages to keep all the story lines taut, and the prose is reliably crisp...Fans of Anne Beattie's family dramas will admire this touching story." --Publishers Weekly

"The joy in Dameron's debut novel is found in the chaotic messiness of blending families, and the strength that love and laughter can provide." --The Washington Post

"The Way Life Should Be is a sprawling, occasionally ribald, often moving meditation on how people who love each other can overcome uncertainty and shame--and on how the consistency of the places we love, like funky Maine beach towns, can set the stage for healing." --Down East Magazine

"With humor, heart, and honesty, William Dameron captures the chaos and beauty of bringing a blended family together as one. In their idyllic yet tiny cottage on the coast of Maine, two dads find themselves unexpectedly hosting all their (nearly) adult children, who bring with them a lot of psychic baggage--secrets, resentment, and the still-festering fallout of having a father who had to leave home to be true to himself. The Way Life Should Be is an unflinching yet unabashedly romantic ode to family, and I thoroughly loved it." --Karen Dukess, author of The Last Book Party

"Ever since I read William Dameron's thrilling, groundbreaking memoir The Lie, I've known Dameron is that rare thing, a storyteller of hard truths, a skilled writer capable of creating a stunning reading experience, an instant classic. But I didn't know that fiction was an even more compelling testament to his gifts. In The Way Life Should Be, he proves just that. In these pages he deconstructs and embraces, in fine prose, a large and complicated blended family whose lives have gone off the tracks. They meet in a small Maine house, whose 'Cottage Rules' provide tender and often hilarious guidelines for not killing one another. Dameron keenly follows all the family members and adjacent friends as they follow their own complicated desires and mysterious issues from the past to search for a place of balance. His finely wrought characters from all generations show us how a big, divorce-messy yet devoted family triumphs, even when squashed into a ridiculously tiny cottage. This is the way life should be: broken and gritty but whole, if its heart remains true and judgments and old grudges can be laid aside. As his protagonist Thomas says, 'There were moments he would never want to experience again, but he wouldn't change them, couldn't change them, because without them, life wouldn't be the way it is now, the way life should be.' This is a love story to Maine, and to family. Highly recommended." --Suzanne Finnamore, bestselling author of Split: A Memoir of Divorce and My Disappearing Mother: A Memoir of Magic and Loss in the Country of Dementia

"A raw and intimate look at the intricacies of a blended family, all under one too-small roof in a seaside Maine town. Dameron pulls you into this story of complicated family dynamics, where relationship bonds are tried, tested, and strengthened across three generations. A tale woven carefully and hilariously, with dad jokes, kindness, acceptance, and love. Come for the clever quips; stay for the honest portrayal of what it is to be human." --Noelle Salazar, international bestselling author of The Flight Girls and Angels of the Resistance

"Like the characters in William Dameron's The Way Life Should Be, I have driven across the Piscataqua River Bridge many times to go home. Dameron effortlessly captures the deep love of family and place and all the heartbreak, laughter, beauty, and joy they contain. It's a loving portrait of second chances." --Steven Rowley