When World War II drags Maggie Lerner’s husband off to Europe, Maggie joins the workforce as one of America’s Rosies. Though she savors her freedom, she is haunted by a dream that leads her to believe something terrible will happen to her husband. After the war, Sam returns home unscathed, and Maggie, who once again takes her place as a doctor’s wife, believes the dream will disappear. Instead, it evolves into an all-consuming world where Maggie is admired for her strength; where she can have whatever she wishes. Resenting her conventional life, she willingly surrenders to the temptation of imagined perfection. But all is not as it seems. Beneath the dream’s flawless surface, a monster lies in wait. In an era of post-war feminism and the latest in psychoanalysis, Maggie will need to confront this evil—whether real or imagined—before it destroys both her worlds.
Maggie’s Dream was impossible to put down and brought back my childhood love of fairy-tales. This decidedly adult fairy tale had all the elements of a great story: Reality versus fantasy, suspense versus thoughtful reflection, forces of good versus evil, light versus dark, with an unexpected ending that brought me reeling back to reality. The book got its depth and credibility from accurately portraying a time in history where women’s lives were changing as quickly as medicine and psychoanalysis, and created the possibility of a Maggie and her dream. I found the ending shocking but it made the book all the more believable.
This is a wonderful, creative, complex book. With a deceptively simple beginning, the novel slowly immerses the reader in Maggie's dream world and makes you wonder whether any of it has parallels to reality or whether it is a strange drug-fuelled fantasy. The ending is utterly brilliant, and I immediately returned to the beginning after finishing the book to try to pick up on the clues the author planted throughout.
This is an unpredictable mix of genres, but I love them all: history, psychology, feminism, fantasy, magical realism. Highly recommended!
Maggie's Dream by Leslie Tall Manning occurs in the U.S. during and after WWII. The women stepped out of their homemaker roles to take over the men's jobs.The work hours were long. They worked long hours while worrying about their husbands, brothers, sons. Their sleepless nights led some of them to unexpected addictions to sleeping pills. At the same time many found an independence they weren't happy to give up when the men came back. As the reader, you will have to put yourself back into Maggie's time frame in order to understand her better.
As a result of all the stress and her addiction, Maggie began having a dream in the same setting night after night. Even after her husband returned, she preferred the dream to reality. I was sure I knew where the story was headed. However, I was so wrong. Leslie Tall Manning surprised me three times.
The author definitely did not resort to using a formula when she wrote this novel. It is very creative. After reading the first third of her story, I could not put the book down, even as my eyes became red and dry. This novel is half fantasy and half mystery. I think I can guarantee that you'll be surprised.
I received the ARC (advanced readers' copy) for free in order to give an objective review before the final, published copy.
This novel opens in 1944 with Maggie, who operates a drill press at a factory, waiting for her physician husband Sam to come home from Europe, where he’s been working during the war. When the war ends and the women working at the factory are laid off, their responses are realistically diverse: some are looking forward to becoming housewives again, while others are disappointed and even angry about losing their newfound independence. Maggie is ambivalent about the change, but soon she has a bigger concern: a disturbing dream she had while her husband was away recurs even after he returns. She begins seeing a psychiatrist without telling her husband, who thinks psychoanalysts are quacks. With the help of the fascinatingly ambiguous Dr. Germaine and some tranquilizers, Maggie delves more deeply into her dream until it becomes more vivid and compelling than her waking life.
This is a weird and wondrous book. Don’t let the deceptively simple beginning fool you: there are clues planted throughout the novel suggesting nothing is quite what it seems. You will be asking yourself whether Maggie’s bizarre and vivid dream is just a dream, a drug-induced hallucination, or---somehow---real. The ending will surprise you and is worthy of the best psychological thrillers.
My only quibble is that the dream itself takes over the book a little too much in the middle section, and the fantastic elements are so detailed at times that I skimmed some parts, wanting to find out more of what was happening in Maggie’s real world. But the dream takes over the book just as it takes over Maggie’s life, so in that way the novel’s structure makes sense. The ending had me yelling loud enough to disturb my husband in the next room, and I stayed awake thinking about the book that night. It still haunts me days later, which is a testament to the skill of Leslie Tall Manning.
If you love history, psychoanalysis (especially dream analysis), and feminism, this book is for you!
Maggie’s Dream is a smart, compelling quest through the protagonist’s psyche via her dreamscape. Leslie Tall Manning has done her homework quite well, both regarding using a Jungian dream work lens and the historical lens of the time during and after World War II in Baltimore. Manning keeps us just a hair’s breadth behind Maggie’s twisting travails, all the way through to a wondrously off-center ending. The writing is vivid; so well crafted. I loved this book!
