Customer Reviews

Dreams of Rescue: A Novel

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This delicately written account of a lovely woman trapped in her awful marriage, is one of the best i've read in years. I found it a subtle satire on the movie business of Fem Jep (female in jeopardy) as well... My book club found it, and it has been a stimulating choice!

Laura Shaine Cunningham has previously authored two volumes of memoirs (SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS, A PLACE IN THE COUNTRY) and a work of fiction (BEAUTIFUL BODIES). DREAMS OF RESCUE is her first book in the "mystery" genre.

It's the dead of winter, and Juliana Smythe is alone in her summer house, an 1899 Victorian, overlooking Lake Bonticou. Juliana, an actress in cinematic thrillers she collectively calls FemJep (translated as "women in peril"), is separated from her husband Matt after an incident of volcanic domestic violence on New Year's Eve for which Juliana was granted a protection order by the court. Now it's February, and there are to be additional hearings. Juliana's trepidation is almost palpable. Does she have enough money to pay the lawyers? Will the court discontinue the protection order? Will Matt return to the house, protection order or not, and again visit his rage on his wife?

Juliana shares with the reader memories of her marriage, from her first date with Matt seventeen years previous, through the spring, summer and fall of the relationship to the present, the agonizing winter. At one point, Juliana muses:

"How long does it take an eighteen-year-old girl to fall in love? About ten minutes." (That's about nine minutes longer than a testosterone-fueled, eighteen-year-old boy brought to a halt by a whiff of perfume and a view of bare skin.)

As an actress that sees her life as an extended movie script, Juliana DREAMS OF RESCUE - by the kindly lawyer or psychologist or next-door neighbor who'll sweep her into his arms and protect and love her. But reality isn't like that, is it? What's High Drama on the Silver Screen reduces to the mundane in the day-to-day drudge. This is to be Juliana's learning curve.

I was immediately intrigued as to the nature of the "Thing in the Box", a piece of evidence Juliana is to present at the next court hearing that will surely convince the judge of Matt's psychological instability. What a clever tease for the reader!

I'm one of the author's biggest fans, having given five stars to all of her previous works. This time, however, I'm bereft to report something less. By the time the nature of the "Thing in the Box" is revealed, the main plot thread has been frayed by tangential events. What's with the creepy vacuum repairman, who, on a housecall to service Juliana's Supralux 699, may have committed the sin of Onan on her mohair shawl? Or the mysterious neighbor across the lake who watches her with a telescope? Or the pervert who breathes heavily over the phone on late night calls? And what about those seven young girls found naked and frozen to death on the lake's ice back in the late 1890s? Was it murder most foul? Indeed, with all the other enigmas resolving themselves, the final court confrontation with Matt is anticlimactic. The storyline, while not becoming uninteresting, just lost its focus, and I finished the book feeling vaguely unsatisfied.

I suspect that there's a lot of Laura in Juliana, especially evident when the latter remembers the loss of her mother at an early age (as the author recalls in SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS). In any case, Cunningham's forte in all her books has been describing her protagonist's feelings. And this reader was immediately absorbed into Juliana's emotional life. I cared about her throughout. For that reason alone, I'm awarding four stars, and hope Laura will understand.

The snowy cover drew me with its image of the longing woman in the window. I was not disappointed -- far from it, I was thrilled as the heroine, a star of frightened women flicks, is scared of her husabnd. But she is shaken up in court when they haul out her films -- is she acting? Or she is impressionable? Or has her life started to imitate her art? A reality lesson for women en route to court to defend themselves against abusive husbands.
Intelligent, well composed and spine-tingly. The atmosphere is rich, in comparing the gothic resort to our gritty polyester realities.

Every marriage is a mystery but Juliana (the heroine) has a more mysterious marriage than most -- She has played women in peril on film, and now in a Gaslight mode, her husband seems to terrorize her. Or is she too suggestive? Who will believe an actress in court? Especially when the scenes she describes are so close to her movie roles? This is a smart exciting book, and addresses the secrets of many husbands and wives, in a rich atmosphere of a gothic resort. My book club is reading and we have never been so on the edge!

This novel is involving and well worth reading. The writing is truly top drawer. There were a few notes that rang false, however.

I was very happy to see domestic violence treated as it actually unfurls within our justice system. Her description of the shame engendered by a violent loved one was on the mark. No matter how much life threatening violence is forecast, meeted out by the one you love most, such violence still takes you by surprise .

However, I was disappointed by the ending. I didn't really understand how, in light of the nightmare she experienced, the protagonist would adopt a child and live in the same house and under the same name. After all, hadn't the local police proved themselves incompetent? The home was isolated. What was to keep ex-hubby from doing to her child as he did to the cat?

In actual domestic violence situations you don't just rescue yourself, you then run for your life.

More mainstream literature and film should focus intelligently on this issue. The men we love are the most likely to imperil us. The judicial system, overwhelmingly controlled by men, is invested in taking the man's side. Thinking our present court system works is truly dreaming of rescue.

Further note: Quinlin's "Black and Blue" should not be missed, if you enjoyed this book.

In this diamond bright novel, that inverts film into real life, a wife/actress is losing her husband or her mind. A contemporary Gaslight, this dreamy read is elegant and polished, and filled with deep characterisations-- Those haunting Frozen Girls! An ode to Victorian thrillers, this is contemporary down to the last bleep of the cellphone...A harrowing and inspiring tale of a woman's redemption from a nightmare marriage. Brava!

In this beautifully composed sonata on pain and fear, an actress, Juliana, attempts to differentiate between terror and rescue in her past films, and the startling realities of trying to persevere in a violent divorce...Fiercely intelligent and brilliantly described,this novel displays the author's gifts as she spins a gossamer crystalline web of connection between what women long for, and what they often receive. With one stunning, cinematic sequence after another, Juliana moves toward genuine and earned salvation.

I lost count of the white images in this unique and clever novel. White for snow, white for brides, white for roses.
This was not what I expected but I liked it a great deal more than if it had been standard kind of scared woman alone at a frozen lake. It is actually a smart take onthe movie business of 'scared women alone' at lakes & an elegant portrait of summer town in its off season.
Highly recommended.

By moonglow, this scintillating addictive novel unfolds...The complicated actress/wife has scared herself almost to death on film, but is or is not her husband now dangerous? the death of love and rebirth of the human spirit form the core of this riveting read. A must!

Part marriage drama, part suspense thriller, this novel follows the story of a B-list "female-in-jeopardy" actress whose life seems to be paralleling those of the victims she plays, during the course of her divorce proceedings from her abusive husband. A good, suspenseful read.