Here Comes the Dreamer
A Novel by Carole Giangrande
Alastair Luce is a dreamer, one of three who tell this tale.
A Canadian expat in the 1950s, he lives in a New York City suburb with his wife, Nora, a passionate American who misses the excitement of wartime life and finds an outlet — and a lover — during the Red scare. Alastair’s an artist, a quiet man who paints houses for a living, fears atomic holocaust, drinks too much and worries about his suffering child Grace. Just before the accident that kills his daughter’s best friend Todd, he offers a ride to their teenage neighbour, Claire Bernard. She continues the story as a witness to tragedy, a wry observer of suburban mores and a compassionate friend of Alastair, whose talent and politics she’d long admired. Yet in the era of Vietnam, she’s not prepared for his love or his anguish as she marries and leaves for Canada. In Toronto, it’s Alastair’s exiled daughter Grace who speaks, giving voice to her fury, an artist who works to “burn” the city down with brilliant colour, who resents Claire for hurting her dad, and still grieves the loss of young Todd. Yet Grace, Claire and Alastair are bound together by their history, and a crisis draws their painful stories to a climax. It’s then that Grace ventures homeward for the first time, into a startling vision of the unknown.
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Print and Online Praise for Here Comes The Dreamer
“What’s most compelling about this novella is how it perfectly captures that heady brew of disquiet desolation and unspent passion that makes up 1950s suburban malaise….a book that feels much fuller than its page count.”
— The Globe and Mail (Toronto).
“The writing, as sparse and clear as the boreal forests of Northern Ontario…goes deep into the hidden depths of the human psyche, and in showcasing one small group of people — a family and their suburban neighbours — shines a light on an era. Author Carole Giangrande shows us how the politics of our times affect us, how our choices shape us, how circumstances beyond our control can nonetheless control us. She’s a gorgeous writer.”
— 5 Minutes for Books
“What a lovely story…not everything is worth reading more than once, but my ongoing experience with Carole Giangrande’s writing is that everything she writes, well, is.”
— Bonnie Fox, Dwell in Possibility
” Here Comes the Dreamer by Carole Giangrande is a short, but powerful novel (that) should be experienced, not described.”
— A Book Geek
“…a very highly recommended, poignant, heartbreaking novella…The writing is incredible — Giangrande’s ability to capture emotions in a descriptive way is phenomenal.”
— She Treads Softly
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