Customer Reviews

Hunts in Dreams

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Tom Drury is one of those gifted writers who deserves wider attention than he has. After the publication of his first novel, The End of Vandalism, Granta chose Drury as one of America's best young novelists. With Hunts in Dreams, he makes good on that promise. Drury is a master of dialogue who can show the emotional distance between husband and wife in just one exchange. His style in this book is deceptively simple, often masking layers of symbolism. His characters are quirky midwesterners who spend a weekend searching for meaning in a largely indifferent universe. One of them stops at nothing to retrieve an antique gun once owned by his stepfather. A seven-year-old boy wanders the town at night surprising himself with his adult thoughts while wielding his secret six-shooter pistol. These characters often try to root themselves in the present by identifying with their pasts -- and they don't always succeed.

Drury is at his best -- and funniest -- in the details. Drury names a bomb lover's dog after an explosive chemical. " 'Here, Cordite,' " he would call, with darkness settling over the suburb where they lived. 'Come home, Cordite.' "

For any readers who love true fiction, this is the book for you. Drury uses his imagination, and he has an uncommon ability to see meaningful, interesting details in that imagined world. Such details make Hunts in Dreams memorable even after you close the covers and place the book on the shelf.

This small, but dense book delivers more of what I enjoy about Mr. Drury's writing: Smart, precise, but easy sentences; dead-on dialogue filled respectfully with the incidental, accidental humor of people trying to get it right; a narrative style that seldom lingers or overexplains; and a gift for expressing the fragililty of our connections to ourselves and others. A brave and honest outing for a this gifted artist.

I should not have read this book without having read the predecessor, or should I? The jacket says this novel is set in The American Midwest as his previous novel was. That comment alone in no manner suggests to me this is a sequel. I tried to divine whether it was by checking on, "The End Of Vandalism", and it's still not clear. My comments are based on this work as a stand-alone story.

Mr. Drury writes very sharp, and at times very clever prose. Some of the dialogue is as witty as you will come across. He also provides enough characters for a 500 page novel much less the 200 pages we are offered here. If this were indeed an installment in a series I would have thought more highly of it, and enjoyed it more. He creates a dysfunctional setting full of dysfunctional characters of varying degree and it makes for a good read. And that is where it ends.

Unless of course this is a series and the stories of his characters are going to continue. For this is one of those books that do not culminate in any form of resolution, rather it feels as though someone tore out the last several chapters of the book.

I like finding new Authors and enjoying their work. I have a real problem with expensive short books that are closer to a large fragment than a book, and may or may not be part of a greater whole because the jacket and the interpretation of it by others is at best vague, at worst wrong.

Really, an excellent example of why books will not die. This book has it all -- the kind of book that becomes part of your life -- you keep thinking about the characters after you've read it, to the point you're wondering about your sanity, what with having to remind yourself you don't really know these people, since they are, ahem, actually fictional.

Read this one and I will also pass on to you a word about another slim and eminently readable novel about contemporary America: "Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf" by Asher Brauner. A wonderful slice of American life.

What a piece of art this book is! The writing is so elegant it takes your breath away. I immediately had to seek out what else he'd written,and then read The End of Vandalism ... which begins the story of the people in this novel. The difference between the lulling, multi-layered, dense first novel and this seems to be that the book was cut down to its core, or to Hemingway's iceberg above the water level. What a tour de force. I have never read a book before that I wanted to immediately reread just to have it wash over me again. Thank you Mr. Drury and please keep writing. But take your time. Speed kills (talent).

Searching for stability and an overall sense of purpose in life is the underlying theme to Tom Drury's latest novel. Set in a mundane, midwestern town over the course of an October weekend, the characters seek out personal comfort in their dreary lives.

In an attempt to connect back with his long-lost childhood and stepfather, Charles Darling goes to any length to retrieve a sentimental shotgun. His wife Joan retreats to a weekend, animal-shelter seminar while trying to find happiness in her otherwise lack-luster marriage. Her orphaned daughter returns home trying to gain a solid stepping stone into adulthood. And their young son Micah inquizzitively explores what reality his little world holds.

Although wonderfully written, I didn't really connect to the characters or much care about their plight. It just seemed like, young or old, everyone hit a mid-life crisis at the same time. There are no great issues tackled here, just the overall blandness that life con sometimes produce and how one family dealt with it.

Since End of Vandalism, I've believed that Tom Drury was one of our best (and most under-appreciated) writers. Hunts in Dreams is a worthy follow-up and a fine, fine book in its own right, displaying all of Drury's singular gifts: his deceptively rich prose, his uncommon knack for dialogue, his sophisticated and evocative layering of metaphor, his meloncholy and ironic sense of humor, his genuine (but completely unsentimental) warmth of feeling for his characters. Reading Hunts In Dreams is like walking through a museum of perfect moments.

Tom Drury has given us another terrific novel. This one takes place in the life of a family of four, over four days. Each of them is hunting for something, sometimes physical, sometimes metaphysical, sometimes both. Charles, the husband is initially seeking a gun that belonged to his step-father, but he is also seeking his youth, before he screwed up his life. His wife, Joan, is searching for answers about her life, about whether she belongs in her marriage, with her family. Their young son, Micah is really just searching for some sense in this world he is growing up in. His half-sister Lyris, who has returned to the family after living in a foster home is also trying to make sense of the quasi-suburban world in which this family lives. This story is marvelously told with Drury's wonderful deadpan humor. Much of the ridiculousness of our lives now is observed, without comment from either the characters or Drury, yet somehow we see that things can be weird in the US right now. Weird in a hilarious way. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it.

Tom Drury's Hunts in Dreams is a distinguished novel. It reflects loneliness and loss in American life. Over one October weekend a multitude of characters in the Midwest hunts for a life they have never had or may have lost. This is no longer the heroic terrain of Faulkner and Cooper but one that is tragicomic where Drury catches the hopes that haunt us still. We emerge with a changed vision for we have encountered the uncharted land of an authentic voice.

I bought this because I loved The Driftless Area. I did not enjoy Hunts in Dreams as much, although Drury's signature is in the writing -- the story itself did not feel as pure, somehow. It didn't feel as cohesive and real, not as sharp. The Driftless Area is excellent.