Skip to content Skip to footer
0 items - $0.00 0
Close

“The Sor­rows of Gath­er­ing is twisty and com­pelling. Part court­room thriller, part his­tor­i­cal epic, it gath­ers you in from the begin­ning and rush­es you along, with its com­plex char­ac­ters, strong writ­ing, and the sur­pris­es that con­tin­ue to the very end. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed.”

– Scott Tur­ow, author of Pre­sumed Inno­cent and Pre­sumed Guilty

 

In the pic­turesque col­lege town of Marsh­ford, Mass­a­chu­setts, a young man named Math­ew McK­in­non is

miss­ing and pre­sumed dead. The year is 1983, three years into the Rea­gan Pres­i­den­cy and the begin­ning of the AIDS epi­dem­ic. 

 

The archi­tect Nolan Gath­er­ing, to whom the young man was appren­ticed, is arrest­ed and charged with mur­der. The Dis­trict Attor­ney seeks the death penal­ty, which has been recent­ly re-instat­ed in the Com­mon­wealth,

because the mur­der was alleged­ly com­mit­ted dur­ing the sex­u­al assault of the young man. 

 

The accused enlists the aid of his child­hood sweet­heart, Rebec­ca Quinn Mar­tin, a nation­al­ly renowned crim­i­nal defense attor­ney.

 

 

The Sor­rows of Gath­er­ing evokes Harp­er Lee’s To Kill a Mock­ing­bird and David Guter­son­’s Snow Falling on Cedars.  By weav­ing a com­plex and com­pelling sto­ry around a cen­tral char­ac­ter accused of mur­der, the nov­el address­es sys­temic prej­u­dices that per­vert pub­lic atti­tudes, infect our legal sys­tem, and dev­as­tate

per­son­al lives.

 

The Sor­rows of Gath­er­ing is more than a legal dra­ma.  Over mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions, the novel’s themes of love and val­or, sex­u­al­i­ty and sac­ri­fice, betray­al and redemp­tion, time and loss, growth and awak­en­ing make it a work of seri­ous fic­tion.  “Like any affect­ing sto­ry, The Sor­rows of Gath­er­ing is both instruc­tive and emo­tive, ignit­ing empa­thy, a kind of moral integri­ty, and a poten­cy strong enough to raise the spir­it.”

 

 

Now avail­able

The Sorrows of Gathering

A court­room thriller and a his­tor­i­cal epic. In 1983 Mass­a­chu­setts, an archi­tect stands accused of mur­der, and the only per­son who can save him is the woman he loved first.

A nov­el by D. A. Dor­wart  |  Hard­cov­er, paper­back and eBook

Buy the book
Look inside

Inside the nov­el

What readers will find

A trial with a life at stake

The Dis­trict Attor­ney seeks the new­ly rein­stat­ed death penal­ty against archi­tect Nolan Gath­er­ing.

A defender with history

Rebec­ca Quinn Mar­tin, a renowned defense attor­ney and Nolan’s child­hood sweet­heart, takes the case.

America in 1983

Set in the col­lege town of Marsh­ford at the start of the AIDS epi­dem­ic and the Rea­gan years.

A story across generations

Love and val­or, betray­al and redemp­tion, with sur­pris­es that con­tin­ue to the very end.

Praise

What readers are saying

Com­bines the intrigue of a mur­der mys­tery and the high stakes of a court­room dra­ma with the elo­quence and sen­si­bil­i­ty of seri­ous lit­er­ary fic­tion.

Rob Kyff

the Word Guy, author of Gatsby’s Secrets

D. A. Dorwart’s The Sor­rows of Gath­er­ing is twisty and com­pelling. Part court­room thriller, part his­tor­i­cal epic, it gath­ers you in from the begin­ning and rush­es you along, with its com­plex char­ac­ters, strong writ­ing, and the sur­pris­es that con­tin­ue to the very end. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed.

Scott Turow

Author of Pre­sumed Inno­cent and Pre­sumed Guilty

There is such care in the nar­ra­tive. Its [non-lin­ear] struc­ture is rich­ly imag­ined, right down to the minor char­ac­ters. The mul­ti­ple twists and over­all treat­ment are sure­hand­ed through­out.

Judith Frank

Lamb­da Lit­er­ary Award for Cry­ba­by Butch 

Dark, haunt­ing, and pro­found­ly human, a sweep­ing lit­er­ary mys­tery that explores love, prej­u­dice, and the dev­as­tat­ing cost of silence. Rich with moral com­plex­i­ty, unfor­get­table char­ac­ters, and aching emo­tion­al depth, this nov­el blends court­room sus­pense with a deeply com­pas­sion­ate med­i­ta­tion on loss, redemp­tion, and the courage it takes to face a world deter­mined to judge before it under­stands.

Danielle Sartorelli

author of Life in Instal­ments

The Sor­rows of Gath­er­ing is a tense, riv­et­ing court­room dra­ma. Set in the ear­ly 1980s, at the begin­ning of the AIDS epi­dem­ic, D. A. Dor­wart exam­ines the con­ser­v­a­tive views on race and homo­sex­u­al­i­ty in sup­pos­ed­ly lib­er­al Mass­a­chu­setts. Ele­gant­ly writ­ten, the char­ac­ters are ful­ly-devel­oped and draw us into their com­plex lives from the begin­ning. Court­room dra­ma at its best.

Larry Barthurst

author of The Philoso­pher’s Stone

The sto­ry feels like a cos­mos unto itself, like W. G. Sebald’s Rings of Sat­urn in which ‘the present is com­posed of the lay­ered remains of count­less past bod­ies and sto­ries. This book is an odyssey. The range is immense, cov­er­ing in lush and effort­less prose, its many sub­jects and themes with acute insight.

Jack Driscoll

Push­cart and PEN/Nelson win­ner for Wait­ing to Be Heard

Its rich­ness reminds me of Antho­ny Doerr’s All the Light We Can­not See.

Mark Spencer

Faulkn­er Award for Love and Reruns in Adams Coun­ty

Get your copy

Where to buy

Amazon

Hard­cov­er, paper­back, Kin­dle

Barnes & Noble

Hard­cov­er, paper­back, Nook

Bookshop.org

Sup­port inde­pen­dent book­stores

Author’s shop

Signed copies

To read the nov­el­’s open­ing, a syn­op­sis, and sam­ple chap­ters, click on the menu above

D.A. Dorwart © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

Subscribe to the updates!