August Summary
Judith Rossner

August Summary

The need for love is once again a major theme. Dawn — abandoned by her mother, who committed suicide when Dawn was six months old, and her father, who went sailing with a friend a year later and drowned — is constantly searching for parents. Her loss is all the more traumatic since her father left her totally alone the day he died, so that she cried in terror in her crib for hours before a neighbor found and rescued her. Now her lesbian aunt Vera, who raised her and whom she called "daddy," has separated from her "mother," Tony, and she feels once again abandoned. To intensify the loss further, Tony is now married and has two stepdaughters, of whom Dawn is jealous, and has had a mastectomy.

Dawn so fears losing Tony that she will not even visit. Feeling both sets of parents unavailable, Dawn attaches...

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