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DREAMING HOME
2024 Emerging Writer Prize in literary fiction, shortlist—Rakuten Kobo
A 2023 Fiction Book of the Year—The 49th Shelf
Eminently accomplished…often deliciously droll—The New York Times
Cover/book design: Ingrid Paulson
A NOVEL-IN-STORIES FROM BIBLIOASIS
JUNE 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781771965491
A sister’s childhood act of betrayal awakens the father’s demons, ones spawned during his time in prisoner-of-war camps during the Vietnam War. The effects of the ensuing violence against the gay son ripple out over forty years.
Set in Killeen, Texas, San Francisco and Fort Lauderdale are six tales told from separate points-of-view that, while heartbreakingly poignant, are often surprisingly funny. Though each has the unitary arc of a short story, the resulting novel is not so much a linked collection as a single, tightly integrated narrative that relates the legacy of childhood trauma on this Texas family. Texas looms large in the work. Though a place the characters flee early in the novel, it is one that is always with them.
In this regard, Dreaming Home is about the immigrant experience, which fosters a kind of double-vision, a rift in the self marked by a yearning for home. As such, architecture figures prominently. The son becomes an architect, designing homes for himself, his lovers, the remnants of his family. The fact that these homes are flawed, temporary, or merely imaginary lends the title its sense irony.
Dreaming Home tackles a number of thorny issues in contemporary life: Conversion therapy, Family Abuse, Depression, Queer Youth Homelessness, PTSD in combat veterans, and AIDS in San Francisco. You will find some of the research I used in writing Dreaming Home in this website’s Study Guide. I hope you find it useful in forming a deeper understanding of the book. { MORE }
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Praise for Dreaming Home
…poses brilliant and important questions [about] the paths life can take toward joy.—Lydia Conklin, Rainbow Rainbow
…compelling prose, first-rate storytelling… bittersweet and utterly affecting…—Lori Ostlund, After the Parade
More praise for Dreaming Home