“Dear Dotty: A Novel”

Who was Dotty Polk? For Rosie Benson, about to turn 25, her great-aunt “Dotty was the only one who could make me feel calm in the midst of my family’s chaos. She made being a misfit look easy. Fun, even. But now she was gone. Right when I needed her the most. The shoddy patchwork that was my life had ripped at the seams and I had no clue how to stitch it all back together. I needed Dotty to tell me where I’d gone wrong. She was never shy about that sort of thing.”

And so begins “Dear Dotty: A Novel” ($11 in paperback from Avon; also available in ebook format) by Chico State grad Jaclyn (Raggio) Westlake. Chosen as a summer must-read by the Gloss Book Club and First for Women magazine, “Dear Dotty” is Rosie’s personal narration, a story of loss and rediscovery. 

Rosie’s job at a tech startup is ill-fated; she’s fired by her boss, Raj, who “stood over my shoulder, watching as I boxed up the personal items in my desk—a strand of lights; a framed picture of Marcia and me from last Halloween…; a mug that read SMASH THE PATRIARCHY in big, bold letters (a gift from Dotty, of course).”

Marcia, her best friend and roommate, is little help on the consolation front (and much later when Rosie finds out Marcia has been sleeping with Raj, things turn frosty). Rosie finds out from Dotty that her parents are divorcing. And then Dotty dies.

Though Rosie had dreamed of working with animals, she lands a recruiting-agency job, and things seem to be looking up. She goes to a party with Marcia, a publicist at a big San Francisco PR firm, honoring “a young, rich, and terribly handsome entrepreneur named Donovan Ng.” Rosie falls hard. But is Donovan the Right One?

Rosie yearns for Dotty’s guidance, and as she helps prepare Dotty’s old home for sale she finds pictures and email addresses of Dotty’s friends she knows nothing about. Dotty loved martinis, other women, and nudism, and through these friends Rosie comes to know her great-aunt more deeply than before—and learns a lesson that changes her life.