Friday, May 16, 2008

THE DREAM : A MEMOIR
by Harry Bernstein

Harry Bernstein was twelve years old, when after years of letters written to relatives living in America, steamship tickets arrive and he and his family depart from England for Chicago. Their hope is to leave their abject poverty behind and make a new life for themselves. For a while they can savor little known luxuries: electricity, a telephone, new furniture and a parlor, with a piano, that Harry's mother had always promised her children.
But, soon, the Great Depression comes and everything changes.
The Dream, which is a follow-up to Bernstein's previous book The Invisible Wall (reviewed in this blog) captures the same charming style that was written before. The characters, though, are much more nuanced and what, eventually, happens to all of them, is so compelling that the reader is drawn, grippingly, in.
A truly, fabulous memoir.