David Finkle Unpacks Marriage in Dorothea Through My Eyes

David Finkle, the award-winning author, journalist, and theater critic for New York Stage Review whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, and New York Magazine, publishes his new novel, Dorothea Through My Eyes, on Nov. 15, 2026, from Plum Bay Publishing. Narrated by Nathan, the darkly comic novel follows college friend Pete, a struggling New York writer, and his wife Dorothea, a British heiress who becomes his muse, champion and dinner-party hostess. As Pete’s career takes off, Nathan watches their marriage from New York and London, until a silent kitchen-table encounter and Dorothea’s departure force him to question what he witnessed. Finkle examines ambition, identity, emotional distress and the limits of friendship, asking why people miss signs of crisis in those closest to them. In the questions below, he discusses craft, comedy, perspective and what fiction reveals about outward appearances and private realities.

Through Nathan’s Eyes

Nathan meets Pete and Dorothea through an old college friendship and watches their marriage unfold over years in New York and London. What drew you to tell this story through Nathan, an observer, rather than through Dorothea or Pete themselves?

I am hoping the title Dorothea Through My Eyes supplies the answer. As the novel explains from the first paragraph, Nathan is saying that we can know friends, family, relatives well, but how far does “know well” extend? Never entirely, it seems to me. If the novel were told through their eyes, that cogent point would never be raised.

Dorothea’s Choice

The pitch quotes Gloria Steinem: “I assumed that I would have to marry the man I wanted to become.” How does that idea shape Dorothea’s role in the novel as Pete’s muse, champion and dinner-party hostess, and what does it cost her?

Using that Steinem quote (I didn’t write the pitch) gets to a significant reality of many marriages—perhaps less so today than when the novel begins in 1968. Then, many women still felt that they would be at a disadvantage in securing careers equal to men. So, maybe, not acknowledging their choice, they subordinate their ambitions to their husband’s. Only to see, years, maybe decades on, that they’d made a harrowing choice—and are all the more bitter because of it. It’s cost the women their finding and establishing themselves.

The Signs People Miss

One night Nathan finds Dorothea alone at the kitchen table, an open and almost empty bottle beside her, and neither of them speaks about it. How did you approach writing that scene so the distress is present without being explained?

Actually, Dorothea does speak about her secret plight in a couple of terse phrases. Nathan is surprised and disoriented by an unexpected glimpse into a marriage about which he had no clue, and he had very much the opposite impression. I hope the reader gets that he’s so surprised at her distress that he thinks it’s best not to pressure her further. Again, of course, he adds to what he doesn’t know beyond this crack in the Pete-Dorothea marriage wall. How did I approach the scene? I approached it as I approach all my writing. I set the characters and motion. Usually at that juncture I consider myself merely taking dictation.

The pitch cites the World Health Organization finding that nearly 1 in 7 people worldwide were living with a mental disorder in 2021. Why do you think friends and family so often miss signs of emotional distress in the people closest to them, and how does the novel explore that gap?

I think friends and family members, et al., miss signs of mental disorders by sensing but ignoring them or by simply being ill-prepared to recognize them. I think the novel does indicate that Pete eventually admits to what he chose not to absorb. George sees too clearly but is also too worn down to attempt any form of repair. By the way, I suspect that statistic is more than 1 in 7.

Ambition, Humor, and Place

How do ambition, identity and personal sacrifice shape the relationships among Nathan, Pete and Dorothea, and where do those pressures fall differently on each of them?

I don’t think Nathan is very concerned with his ambition, identity, and personal sacrifice during his retelling of the story. If he were, this would be a different tale. Pete is ambitious and rewarded by a growing reputation, much of it by either failing to take in Dorothea’s concerns or ignoring them. I think and hope that the entire novel explores and reveals how life is a different affair for Dorothea, who has suppressed her talents for Pete’s sake, so to speak.

You describe the novel as darkly comic. How did you balance comedy with the seriousness of Dorothea’s descent, and what can a comic tone reveal about a marriage that a strictly serious tone cannot?

Both Pete and Dorothea are bright; their brightness includes a sense of humor. So, those sides of them and the people around them led to that tone, that absolutely honest tone. What the novel suggests maybe is that humor can only have an effect when the emotional elements run deeper. A strictly serious tone might also undermine sustained interest in the reader.

Pete’s book is published, and his career takes off while Dorothea’s private reality moves in another direction. How did you structure time and place across the New York apartment and the London home to show the gap between outward appearances and private realities?

To start, less than a fifth of the book, I would say, takes place in New York, in Manhattan. All of it covers the first years of the marriage, sets place and, I hope, the first beams of light in their subsequent shared and broken lives. I don’t think there’s a gap. It’s more that their time together—and then not together—develops as the marriage continues. More and more, their outward appearances and private realities merge and emerge. Don’t many novels work this way?

Class and Background

Dorothea is a British heiress from an old family with a crumbling but majestic estate. What interested you in that backdrop of inherited wealth and class, and how does it bear on Pete’s ambition as a struggling writer?

What wouldn’t be of interest in examining those surroundings and the effect the particularities had on Dorothea, the specific pros and cons of her background, her odd attraction to it and revulsion from it. That contradiction, when it struck me, seemed worth exploring. I think Pete’s ultimate indifference to it—his father something of a well-remunerated national figure—inured him to the comforts money allows. Also, his gathering literary success accounts for his behavior. He really only struggles for a brief time at the story’s beginning.

You are a theater critic and journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, and New York Magazine, and the author of the award-winning Humpty Trumpty Hit a Brick Wall. How did that background in journalism and criticism shape the voice and construction of this novel?

I am a writer. I have written in several areas for some time. As Edmund Wilson said—I think he said it—”A writer writes.” If you write for several decades, it may be that you come to believe in your abilities, all the while continuing to hone your writing, what’s often called “finding your voice.”

What’s Next

What is next for you after Dorothea Through My Eyes, and is there anything else you would like to share with readers and fans?

I have finished a surreal romance and am working on a sequel to my previous book, The Great Gatsby Murder Case, which is focused on another literary classic. I’m not certain which will appear first. On the other hand, I never know when a short story will sail into view. A writer writes.

Dorothea Through My Eyes [ISBN for the paperback is: 978-1-7335253-5-0; Ebook: 978-1-7335253-6-7] publishes Nov. 15, 2026, by Plum Bay Publishing, $17.99, 234 pages. Follow the publisher at plumbaypublishing.com.

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