Dust on The Road

This is the story of a fifty-year-old female psychiatrist, Jenna Canniness, in her evolution, personally and professionally, from adolescence through a sixteen-year marriage. Her divorce becomes the agent of profound change. She is an intelligent, overly driven, and empathic doctor, as shown through multiple vibrant dialogues with numerous patients in her office. At age thirty-three she marries Cal, a pharmacist, and the reader witnesses their intense and deeply troubling relationship, filled with competition, unmet expectations, and ultimately verbal abuse and alcoholism. Although Jenna’s intentions are good, she has such blind spots resulting from her defense mechanisms and her early experiences that she cannot apply her professional skills to herself. The reader thus becomes even more astute than Jenna, and identifies with her in her painful struggle to find strength and self-confidence.