#76
Title: Train Dreams
Author: Denis Johnson
Read
by: Will Patton
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B
Published:
2011
Dates: 11/15/16 – 11/16/16
CDs/Hours:
2/2.5
Crammed
into two and half hours of listening time is the extraordinary story of Robert
Grainier. A mild-mannered man, a day
laborer, a man who falls in love, and together with his wife have a daughter. They live in eastern WA near the Idaho
panhandle and have an acre of land. One
day while he is away his wife and daughter escape a fire and he loses them both
– his wife to death from the fire and his daughter from what he perceives to be
drowning. Yet in the subsequent years as
his dreams become nightmares he believes his daughter has returned to him, with
a broken leg that he splints. She
appears to be a wild thing and crawls away.
Other
extraordinary things happen – his trips to town occasionally to attend
performances by visiting out-of-this- world exhibitionists; a red-coated, she-dog
who shows up on his door-step and a few months later whelps wolf pups; the deep
resonate howl Grainier himself emits that tend to satisfy his longing for the
precious things in his life he’s lost.
The Library Journal touts the book this way – “Johnson has
skillfully packed an epic tale into novella length.”
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