Jack and Jill, Over the Hill

The novelistic treatment of characters who are elderly, or at least mature, forces a writer into some predictable choices—just as, you might argue, is the case in our real life. The road in the rearview mirror, of course, is infinitely longer than that seen ahead through the windshield. So will we look back or forward? When we look back, will it be with nostalgia or regret? If we look forward, will it be with dread or hope? Dave Williamson in Dating goes in both directions. And the optimists in his audience should know that he goes backwards more with nostalgia than regret and forward with infinitely more hope than dread.

After almost 50 years of marriage, Barbara, the wife of Williamson’s hero, Jenkins, dies. Jenkins, now into his seventies, is on his own. Yes, he has a couple of grown children and a delightful grandchild he can visit and who sometimes visit him. But other...