Dolly All the Time

These opening chapters immediately introduce The Burden of Caretaking as a major influence on Dolly’s characterization. Her first action upon returning to her family home is to grab a broom and sweep the porch, a small but telling gesture that establishes her role as the family’s primary caretaker. This identity is reinforced by her internal to-do lists, her concern over her brother’s well-being, and her father’s relief at her arrival. When Freddie tells her, “This place is a circus” (31), and Dolly recalls their tradition of being the “ringmasters,” the narrative solidifies her position as the one who imposes order on chaos. Her acceptance of this role is both a source of strength and a significant obstacle to her personal fulfillment. The theme of The Burden of Caretaking is central to her character; she is a kindergarten teacher, a part-time Uber driver, a call-center employee, and now, the person responsible for managing a family crisis. This constant labor, both emotional and practical, has shaped her into a fiercely self-sufficient woman who sees problems as tasks to be completed. Her father’s regret that he has “taken enough” from her emphasizes the personal cost of this role, suggesting that Dolly’s sense of duty has long required her to sideline her own needs.

The initial encounter between Dolly and Stewart, in which she changes his flat tire, sets up the novel’s exploration of The Harmful Consequences of Class Division. When Dolly offers to help, Stewart’s incredulous response, “From you?” (13), reveals a worldview where practical labor is outsourced. This moment contrasts Dolly’s working-class competence with Stewart’s inherited learned helplessness. The town of Whitfield itself, modeled on the Gilded Age enclave of Newport, Rhode Island, is a backdrop for this disparity. The Whitfields reside at Eight Oaks, a sprawling estate with stables and a private chapel, while Dolly’s family lives in a modest house on Goose Lane, which is now facing condemnation due to a roof repair they cannot afford. Stewart’s ability to casually offer Dolly $60,000 to solve an image problem throws their financial realities into stark relief. His wealth insulates him from the basic struggles that define Dolly’s life, creating a chasm between them that their manufactured relationship is designed to unnaturally bridge.

Annabel Monaghan delves further into this critique of social dynamics through her use of the popular fake dating trope. Dolly and Stewart’s dinner at Bistro Belle Vie formalizes their arrangement, framing their relationship as a business transaction governed by a contract. By negotiating terms such as duration, frequency of outings, and physical contact or lack thereof, they strip the romance-genre premise of its romanticism. The deal is motivated by mutual, pragmatic need: Stewart requires a stable-looking partner to secure his promotion to CEO, and Dolly needs the money to save her family’s home from being condemned. This setup employs the fake dating trope to explore the transactional nature of relationships within their respective social strata. For Stewart, even his real engagement to Audrey appears to have been a strategic alliance, while for Dolly, her low expectations for romance are rooted in a practical desire to avoid emotional and logistical complications. Their agreement, with its explicit financial terms and non-disclosure agreement, highlights how both characters use relationships as a means to an end, albeit for vastly different reasons and with vastly different stakes.

The shopping trip with Busy marks Dolly’s physical transformation into the role of Stewart’s girlfriend, a process that highlights her deep-seated practicality and discomfort with the performative nature of wealth. As she tries on canary yellow pants and a celery-green satin gown, she feels like she is in a costume. Her remark, “I don’t feel like myself” (83), underscores that this makeover is about conforming to the aesthetic standards of a world she does not belong to. Busy’s encouraging words that Dolly is still herself, just “sprinkled in pixie dust” (83), use fairytale imagery to further emphasize the artifice of the identity she is adopting. The most significant change is her new bob haircut, which exposes her face and neck, stripping away the long hair she could hide behind. This external change forces a shift in her posture and self-perception, preparing her for the public scrutiny that will accompany her new role. Her choice of the subtle gold dahlia necklace over more ostentatious jewelry shows a small act of preserving her identity amidst the overwhelming performance, a quiet anchor to her true self.

The looming threat of the family home being condemned grounds the novel’s central conflict in a tangible, material crisis. The house on Goose Lane with its fire-damaged sleeping porch reflects the Brick family’s precarious situation. The fire itself reveals the deeper, hidden decay of the rotted roof, which, like the family’s long-standing financial and emotional struggles, has gone unaddressed for too long. For Dolly, the house is the repository of her family’s history and the place where she has “tended to [her] people” (32). Her immediate impulse to begin repairs herself reinforces her identity as a fixer. The sleeping porch, a space of both trauma and potential renewal, becomes the focal point of her efforts to restore order and security. This stands in contrast to the Brick Fish House, a business with a proud legacy now shadowed by debt, and Eight Oaks, which represents the effortless security of inherited wealth, a form of stability that Dolly can only access through a transactional arrangement. These financial and psychological tensions place pressure on Dolly and Stewart’s relationship as the novel continues.