Local author Nicola Davison aims to decode the elusive bestseller

WIth her sophomore novel, ‘Decoding Dot Grey’, Dartmouth’s Nicola Davison establishes herself as one of Atlantic Canada’s most exciting new wordsmiths

CITYnews halifax \ Steve Gow

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You will likely find Nicola Davison’s newest book situated in the Young Adult (YA) section of your local bookshop but that doesn’t necessarily mean Decoding Dot Grey is for the teen set.

“The protagonist is 18-years-old so she is of the time of life when she’s leaving home and trying figure out how to be an adult,” says the Dartmouth-based author about her second published novel. “(But) I didn’t write it with a category in mind (and) it was written more for adults, so it would be an upper YA is what I think they call it.”

The story of a young woman named Dot Grey, Davison’s follow-up to her award-winning debut novel In the Wake follows the eponymous protagonist’s journey as she leaves home for the first time and moves into a dark basement suite where she cohabitates with several small critters — among them a hairless rat and an injured crow.

An staff member at an animal shelter, Dot Grey finds refuge among the ailing animals as she dodges her father and attempts to cope with her mother’s recovery from a trauma that has left her bedridden in the hospital.

Fixed on helping to heal the injured animals at the shelter, she soon meets a man with a good heart, but who also holds a secret that may jeopardize his chances with Dot Grey.

“It really did come together pretty quickly,” notes Davison, who knew from the start she wanted Dot to relate more with animals than humans and struggle with her mother’s situation. “(So) I put a cast of characters around her that could support and challenge those views, so I think that that came together pretty naturally for me.”

From the outside, it seems as if writing has also always come naturally for Davison.  Even though she published her first novel, In the Wake, in 2018, that narrative came together almost immediately after her husband enrolled her in a workshop with the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia as a birthday gift.

“I had always written journals in various places where I worked at, and I would do the newsletters and that sort of thing, and people would enjoy my writing,” recalls Davison. “So I knew that I wanted to write, but what I thought I wanted to write was non-fiction and I was afraid to start fiction. I had ideas bubbling all the time but I didn’t know where to begin.”

However, once she began the workshop under the direction of award-winning author Donna Morrissey, she quickly found her calling with In the Wake, which would go on to win the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award in 2019.

“That was wonderful and completely unexpected — with your first book, you just want it to not suck honestly,” laughs Davison. “So I was really surprised and happy to see the reception it got.”

If history is any indication, Davison will definitely have another hit on her hands with Decoding Dot Grey. Not only have early reviews been favourable, but it has also been embraced by the local literary community — with such award-winning colleagues as Tom Ryan saying Decoding Dot Grey “will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.”

“When you’re a writer, it’s not as if your readers are choosing between your book and someone else’s book,” adds Davison about the support she’s received from the local writing community. “You are helping each other along, so if you like this style of writing then you may like this other writer’s style of writing, so we’re there to help each other find an audience.”

For more information on Decoding Dot Grey, visit Nicola Davison’s website.