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Search - Give Us Our Dream

Give Us Our Dream
Author: Arthemise Goertz

"We all have our dreams," said Mrs. Marsan. "They don't cost a dime, and they don't take up much space." — Here is a book for people who believe life can hold happiness and hope and laughter. The scene is a small apartment house in Sunnyside, just thirty minutes from Times Square - a lowly kind of Grand Hotel, but to Mrs. Lily Marsan as exciting ... more »a place as anyone could ask.

Although she was a widow, Mrs. Marsan was seldom lonely. For years now she had suffered joyously from insomnia. Things happened at night that never happened in the daytime. And scarcely a night passed but Mrs. Marsan could share vicariously in some drama of her neighborhood. She had her window overlooking the street, and Mr. Cernak's gold-inlaid opera glasses; and she had her friends all around her.

Sunday afternoon was the hour of elegance in Mrs. Marsan's week - the social event for which she polished what was left of the silver on her plated ware and put out her initialed napkins. Mr. Joseph Cernak always dropped in at four for coffee, with his social theories - and his sister Jessamine, once a great singer. Then there was that nice Mr. Ingalls, manager of the local A&P store whom Mrs. Marsan suspected of leading a double life; the snobbish Adrian Larsch, too busy with "culture" to notice Mr. Ingall's admiration; Vivien and Burt, whose "marriage" was going on the rocks because of blonde, flighty Coral Sands; crippled Joey, loving life as much as Mrs. Marsan did, but dominated by her possessive, protective sister; Jean Landry, on the brink of tragedy since she had lost her husband in the war....

Mrs. Marsan couldn't help sharing in the lives of everyone around her. She believed firmly in fate and the stars, but sometimes she had to give fate a shove in the right direction. There wasn't much she could do about Vivien and Burt, except in her wisdom to ease Vivien's bitterness. But she could play cupid for Jean and Joey, and help the unhappy Jessamine to find her place in the world again. Living from day to day by her own simple philosophy, she helped her friends attain their dreams.

In ":Give Us Our Dream," Arthemise Goertz has built a novel of amazing heart and humor, a novel whose strength lies in the magic of everyday existence, in the influence that one woman can have on the lives, the great hopes and small pleasures, of her friends and neighbors.

Ms. Goertz said of her book: "I want my characters to tell people what these years have proved to me: that nobody is ever alone in the dark, that the human heart is not merely a muscle, and that life and living are two different things."

Great for age, but jacket has considerable edge wear, which I mended.

ISBN: 423375
Publication Date: 1947
Pages: 298
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Whittlesey House
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Write a Review

Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> General

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