Although she is more than 25 years his junior, they get married in 1979 and have one son, Brendan. Ken one day sells his company and starts a government-funded project providing affordable accommodation for those in need, which gains him a lot of recognition in the community. Dinah has an extramarital affair until Ken, despite his lifelong strict diet and his regular exercise, has a heart attack in 1994 at the age of 65. Hoping that it might cheer Ken up, Dinah invites Charlie and Jody for Thanksgiving, but the family reunion only serves as an eye-opener to Ken Kimble's despicable character. After recovering from his illness, Ken leaves Dinah. It is soon discovered that he had been embezzling large sums of money from his non-profit organisation and that a small child has died in one of the houses he is responsible for because he refused to have a faulty furnace repaired. Ken dies alone in Florida. Reception John Homans wrote in New York that Mrs. Kimble "breathes new life into an old American archetype—the romantic con man." Sara Ivry observes that Mrs. Kimble is "a triptych of one person's duplicitous life as seen by his spouses, with their longing and regret, mired in distinct cultural eras." References 2003 American novels Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award-winning works 2003 debut novels