Mérida Author Brings Colonial New England to Life in 3rd Novel

(Updated to reflect new schedule)

Dave O. Dodge has spent more than a decade living in Mérida’s Centro Histórico, running a boutique bed-and-breakfast and writing fiction rooted in the New England he left behind. His latest novel returns to that territory — and to some of its darkest history.

Released March 24, Hannah: One Woman’s Quest for Vengeance and Enlightenment is Dodge’s third biographical novel and his most ambitious yet. It fictionalizes the life of Hannah Duston, a Puritan woman from colonial Massachusetts whose story has stirred debate for more than 300 years.

The historical record is stark. On March 15, 1697, a group of Abenaki raiders struck the frontier settlement of Haverhill, Massachusetts, during King William’s War, killing 27 colonists and taking 13 captive. Among those seized were Duston, just days after giving birth, and her nurse, Mary Neff. Her infant daughter was killed during the forced march north. Weeks later, Duston and 2 other captives — Neff and a 14-year-old boy named Samuel Leonardson — killed 10 members of the Abenaki family, holding them and escaping south by canoe. Duston later scalped the bodies to collect a colonial bounty. She was celebrated as a hero by some, condemned as a murderer by others, and remains a contested figure in American history.

Dodge, who grew up in Franklin, New Hampshire, near the Merrimack River that runs through much of Duston’s story, says he was drawn to the human being beneath the legend. “It is a complex tale of survival, trauma and moral ambiguity that has continued to stir controversy over 300 years later,” he writes in the novel’s press materials. The book blends documented fact with folklore, reconstructing Puritan life on the colonial frontier — its rigid social codes, its relentless fear, and its silencing of women — while following Duston from her life before the raid through its traumatic aftermath.

Rather than rendering a verdict on Duston’s actions, Dodge leaves that to the reader. The novel asks what drives a person past the boundaries of their own faith and identity, and whether survival and vengeance can ever be cleanly separated. It is ground that historians and writers have been covering for generations: statues of Duston in both Haverhill and Boscawen, New Hampshire, were vandalized in 2020 amid renewed debate over her legacy and the violence inflicted on the Abenaki.

Dodge is no stranger to complicated New England women. His first novel, The Seasons of Grace, reimagined the life of Grace Metalious, the embattled author of Peyton Place. His second, Betty: A Life Interrupted, revisited the famous 1961 alien abduction account of Betty Hill. The pattern is consistent: take a figure caught between documented fact and folklore, restore complexity, and let the contradictions breathe. Yucatán Magazine covered Dodge’s earlier work when he was preparing a New England book tour for his first two novels.

The book has moved quickly since its release. Dodge reports 60 copies sold in the first eight days.

An official launch event is scheduled for Sunday, April 19, at SoHo Galleries on Calle 60 between 43 and 41 in Centro Mérida. The gallery, one of the city’s most established contemporary art spaces, will host Dodge for a presentation and signing.

Hannah is available on Amazon and Kindle, and at independent bookstores. For book signing dates and more information, visit daveododge.com.