Dorothea Dreams

by Suzy McKee Charnas

$16 (paperback)
$9.95 (e-book)	EPUB	MOBI

When her old friend, Ricky Maulders, who is dying of cancer, visits artist Dorothea Howard, he discovers she's being held captive by the magical power of one of her own creations that she refuses to let go of, and haunted by the ghost of a judge in post-Revolution France. Dorothea insists that all she wants is to be left alone. But then three Chicano teens on the run from the police and a gaggle of summer-school students violently enter Dorothea's life, and she's confronted with all the messy stuff (like "politics") she's always sought to avoid.

In an interview (here), Suzy McKee Charnas discusses Dorothea Dreams and fiction writing.

Praise for Dorothea Dreams

For me, Dorothea Dreams is the most purely beautiful of [Suzy McKee Charnas's] novels. It is certainly the one that speaks most directly to my own fears and obsessions. When I read it, I am proud to be a woman, proud to be an artist, even proud to be asthmatic and mortal and fallible, because they're all part of being human. And that's what art and literature are about, aren't they? The glory and shame of the human condition.
    — Delia Sherman, author of The Porcelain Dove and co-editor of Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing

It's an intimate book, a book to savour privately. [Suzy McKee Charnas] has a high-burning talent.
    — James Tiptree Jr., aka Alice Sheldon, 25 Nov. 1985

Reviews

In vivid, pungent scenes from a range of viewpoints, spiced with just a hint of the fantastic, Charnas reveals the confusion and splendor of humanity.
    — Locus, Feb, 1986

It is not the structure of the novel that impresses most, but the characterizations and thematic richness [Dorothea] is a magnificent creation, fully realized; a middle-aged artist with enough dormant strength to sustain three people.
    — Washington Post, April 8, 1986

The plot in Dorothea Dreams starts slowly and explodes like the dreams that shake Dorothea from her sleep with visions of the French Revolution and blood-thirsty crowds.
    — United Press International, June 4, 1986

ISBN: 978-1-933500-39-3 (13 digit)
Publication Date: Jul 2010
paperback 344 pages