Dream House: A Memoir (Graywolf Rediscovery) [Paperback]

Charlotte Nekola (Author)

Book Description

Series: Graywolf Rediscovery | Publication Date: April 1995

The co-editor of Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940 comes to terms with her mother's early death from cancer, her father's alcoholism, and her sister's drift into homelessness in a look back at life in the 1950s.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With courage and lyricism, Nekola probes behind the happy facade of her 1950s family. The meditative vignettes form a poignant mosaic, though Nekola--now a poet and professor at William Paterson College in New Jersey--puts off describing herself for too long. The author's college-educated mother never wrote the book she wanted to; instead she compiled recipes with commentary in which "she kept a running conversation with herself about success and failure." Still, the author believes her mother briefly subverted the prevailing ethos to nudge her daughter to independence. Her father, denied a college education by the Depression, was nothing like the "TV fantasy of physically available, emotionally tuned-in fathers in the 1950s." Her sister, following a rollercoaster ride of manic depression, petty crime and rootlessness, died young and caused Nekola to observe that "none of this holding on . . . guarantees anything at all." Trying to introduce some reliability into the wounded lives of her niece and nephew, Nekola muses, "I want to be that solid thing that I cannot be quite yet." Through her prose, she has begun that reconstruction.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Growing up in the 1950s in St. Louis, Nekola saw Grandmother Estella's house as a place of intrigue, stability, and comfort and her own house as ordinary. She saw Father as King and Mother as "the aproned person who went with the little brick house." In retrospect, Nekola sees a father who preferred travel and martinis above all else, a mother who died from cancer in mid-life with unrealized desires and dreams, and a sister who died at 46 from chronic alcoholism after 16 years of manic depression. In telling this story of her family, Nekola, a poet and coeditor of Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940 (Feminist Pr., 1987), attempts to come to terms with her own life. She does not tell a happily-ever-after story about her middle-class family but a tale about a family connected by blood and magical moments and disconnected by misfortune. Everyone has stories to tell about family and coming to grips with life, but it takes skill and courage to pen a well-written story as honest and revealing as this one. Recommended for all libraries.
- Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Pr; 1st edition edition (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155597225X
• ISBN-13: 978-1555972257
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,755,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good book from her stepbrother's point of view, February 20, 2001

By 

Michael B. Smith (VT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dream House: A Memoir (Hardcover)

As the author's step-brother, I felt this was a very good book that helped me get to know my step-sister better. It is also a very good description of life in those days. A heart felt description of a part of her life.

Michael

5.0 out of 5 stars says it so well, April 24, 2010

By 

Discerning in Seattle "Discerning" (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dream House: A Memoir (Graywolf Rediscovery) (Paperback)

This book so well captures the plight of many woman who gave up their dreams and the impact on their daughters.
I loved the sentence 'the walls were papered with her sighs'.