Customer Reviews

Sweet Dream Baby

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read Sweet Dream Baby a few weeks ago, during a period of much stress & strife, and I loved it because I could get totally lost in it and in Travis' wonderful voice (also the great use of popular songs). I quickly ordered Sterling Watson's earlier book from Amazon, but was sorry to find no sequel that would allow me to see if and how Travis and the rest of his seemingly normal (at first), bizarre, sad family navigate the rest of their lives. Fun to read, beautifully written, thought-provoking, disturbing.

Sterling Watson's fifth novel, "Sweet Dream Baby," has the feel of a well built, well loved home at a time when most novels with bestseller potential are empty houses. Tom Waits sang that a house without love ain't nothing but a house where somebody lives. The characters of Watson's novel don't simply live in its pages; they bring those pages to life. Watson possesses a gigantic heart, and his characters are lucky to have him, lucky to be so loved.

His twelve-year-old Travis Hollister comes of age in Widow Rock, a backwoods Florida Panhandle town. It's the 1950s, and wherever teenagers hang out, rock n' rollers like the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis, shake nerves and rattle brains. The town elders just don't get it, and Travis nestles himself under the young wing of his Aunt Delia, a sixteen-year-old ingénue setting the cornerstones for a Southern Gothic love-quadrangle--pentangle if you count the undying paternal love of the Sheriff of Widow Rock, Travis's Grandpa Hollister.

Grandpa Hollister is a character along the inscrutable and rigid lines of Thomas Sutpen in "Absalom, Absalom!" by William Faulkner. And Watson's portrait of small-town life on the far side of the Hiawassee River has the sultry air of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, depicted in "The Sound and the Fury" and elsewhere. The folks of Widow Rock are no less polite than their Mississippi counterparts; neither are they any less likeable for their peculiarities. Watson is a Southern writer tipping his hat to Sheriff Bill, but he is also an American writer who has channeled the spirit of a young nation in all its postwar, hip-twisting bravado and its infatuation with love in the midst of the baby boom.

I was born in 1976, and "Sweet Dream Baby" made me nostalgic for the youth of my parents, the parking and cruising, drinking malts in juke joints, eating burgers and fries in the backseat of a souped-up street rod. Watson shows us these things again and for the first time through adolescent eyes. His novel is no less adult for the narrator's immaturity. The opposite is true; Travis's age makes for mature audiences because Travis grows up all too fast, comes of age to find himself lost in the kind of love that breaks spirits and psyches along with hearts. "Sweet Dream Baby" is more racy than sweet--the romance tale of a twelve-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl, complete with a surprise ending as beautiful as it is tragic--an engrossing read bound to interrupt your daily life, leaving your errands undone and your work set aside. When your loved ones want to know what you've been doing and where you've been, tell them not to worry. Tell them you were in caring hands.

This story is replete with seemingly simple descriptions that reflect the observations of any 12-year-old boy: women who touch their golden crucifixes when a preacher talks of loose women, small lizards that do push-ups in the back yard--but gradually, as the story creeps up on you, the images get darker, like Delia dancing alone to Sweet Dream Baby while on-lookers weep and the ghostly imagery of raging rain running like blood through the house's gutter, "pumping hard as it fights the storm."
Reading some other reviews of this great book, it seems like a sequel is in the works. If that's true, bring it on!

Sweet Dream Baby is an amazing novel, and its power grows as time passes. I read the novel when it first came out, and it's still with me. The music, the sight of a swimming hole, even a dusty road can make Travis and Delia appear for me again. What I wanted to know when I put the book down was, does Travis have a chance at a decent life? And what was up with Delia? More and more, I want to find out, because I can't let these characters go. I hope there will be a sequel.

Sterling Watson is an author everone needs to get to know.
The only problem I had with this book, was that it ended. I want to know what becomes of these so compelling characters. We can only hope that the world can get its hands on a sequel, and soon! The writing is gorgeous. Sweet Dream Baby is an entirely believable (yet ultimately very dark) voyage into the mind of a young boy who slides from youthful, sweetness and innocense down into the murk of an adult world that is too much for him to handle. Travis will just break your heart and you'll thank Sterling Watson for making it happen.

Sultry summer nights, passion, music, and a bit of mayhem... Sterling Watson's SWEET DREAM BABY is an unforgettable novel by a wonderful writer more people should know about. (What I want to know is, where is the sequel?)

Sweet Dream Baby is a fantastic book about a young boy trying to understand the puzzles and traumas of his life. I found myself unable to put the book down, and when I had to be pulled away from it, I kept thinking about the characters until I could go back to it again. The voice is incredible: the simple, innocent perspective of a twelve-year old boy in the 1950s. I'd follow him down any road he chose to walk, story-wise.

Sweet Dream Baby by Sterling Watson

On a sultry summer river, two young people explore small town life in the backwater of Florida . This tapestry of a story mesmerized me with its rich characters and tangled landscapes, its troubled families and brooding mysteries. If you appreciate musical prose and gripping plots, you will relish this haunting book. I can't wait for the sequel so I can learn more about Travis and Delia.

Simply told and deeply affecting. I can't wait to read more by this gifted writer.

I've only just recently read Sterling Watson's, "Sweet Dream Baby", and I continue to be mindfull throughout the day of the compelling voice relayed in such an intriguing way via the first person narrative. The narrative voice engages the reader as the child, Travis, captivates us with his moving insight and poignant and powerful observations.

All the while there is the delicious development of tension ... apprehension ... melancholy, but finally determined hope for Travis and Delia.

In short, I like the many others writing reviews here, can't wait for the much anticipated sequel to the fascinating story found within "Sweet Dream Baby."