Dream Of Another America

0/5 ( ratings)

“So gritty about every least detail, so frank about its people’s needs, Dream of Another America might at first seem the furthest thing from a dream. Yet Tyler McMahon has worked this desperate material into a headlong tumble of jeopardy and escape, sweeping up a remarkable array of souls—mostly Central American—in a spell so vivid it seems straight out of the deepest recesses of the unconscious. As his protagonist Jacinto makes his way north to Los United, McMahon puts the reader too up against the worst monsters of that odyssey, now baking in the desert, now clinging to a train. The novel’s likewise unsparing about the burdens on the family back in El Salvador, most impressively Jacinto’s wounded but resourceful wife. Even if the man can survive the trip, and by some miracle get his family North as well, his story will long disturb the sleep of our all-too-comfortable slumber.”
—John Domini, author of Movieola!

“The ‘dream’ in Dream of Another America is both a noun and an imperative verb of hope: Tyler McMahon has written a Grapes of Wrath for contemporary America. Like Steinbeck’s classic, Dream of Another America urges readers to confront the costs and sacrifices of the American Dream. Beautifully written, emotionally gripping, narratively propulsive, and morally important, this book should be necessary reading for every American.”
—Shawna Yang Ryan, author of Green Island and Water Ghosts

“Dream of Another America is a tautly-spun, dark and stirring migration parable, an ode to the impoverished, powerless, and double-crossed south of the proverbial border, and a sensuous, fast-moving train hop of a read that is every migrant's nightmare, every inhabitant of Eden’s duty.”
—J. Reuben Appelman, author of The Kill Jar: Obsession, Descent, and a Hunt for Detroit—s Most Notorious Serial Killer