From Publishers Weekly

Dawson's nicely written if erratically paced debut interweaves two story lines--in 2005, there's Annabelle McKay's midlife crisis as her empty-nest marriage to historian Grant falls into the doldrums, and in the 1970s, there's the beginning of their relationship and the affair that nearly drove them apart. In the present, Annabelle's middle-aged ennui and floundering marriage spin out slowly until her pregnant daughter Sophie's health crisis takes Annabelle to Manhattan to care for her. In the past, Dawson trawls through Annabelle and Grant's young, troubled marriage during his first job at Columbia University, when they live with his mentor, Jeremiah. The first third of the book is so mired in backstory that even Dawson's enjoyable prose and keen characterization can't save the monotony. The novel finally picks up steam when past and present collide, underlining the themes of marriage and self, but the ending feels rushed and pat. For fans of upmarket hen lit, it's worth a look, but Dawson doesn't deliver enough consistent tension to make the work pop.
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Review

"[A] deceptively bouncing, ultimately wrenching novel [that] will grab you at page one....The phrase 'summer read' seems invented for this debut."
—_People
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"Nicely written...enjoyable prose and keen characterization."
—_Publishers Weekly_

“Both tender and exquisite, Maddie Dawson’s triumphant debut, The Stuff That Never Happened, is a pitch-perfect look into the choices we made in our past and the consequences that they carry long into the future. I loved every page.”
—Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author of The One That I Want
 
"_The Stuff That Never Happened_ is unlike a lot of novels I read - I was never quite sure what was going to happen, and in that way, I found it compelling and compulsive to read.  Often when I'm halfway through a book, I'm fairly certain of the characters' paths.  This time, the lives encountered were surprising, illuminating, and always believable."
—Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales

“What a joy it is to discover Maddie Dawson. In the best storytelling tradition of writers like Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler, Dawson delivers a fast-paced, unflinching, often hilarious novel about the challenges of love, parenthood, and staying true to yourself in a marriage.”
—Holly Robinson, author of The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter: A Memoir

“'I can admit that I went there hungry for the drama of him, that I craved that heightened sense of loving and being loved again,' Maddie Dawson's middleaged heroine confesses.  In trying to make sense of one married woman's relationship to her old flame, The Stuff That Never Happened is a paean to family happiness as much as romance.”
—Stewart O'Nan, author of Songs for the Missing