Hunts in Dreams

Tom Drury

Hunts in Dreams achieved everything that Purple America tried and failed to do. It's a weekend in the life of a Minnesota family-- a plumber father obsessed with a family heirloom that now belongs to someone else; his wife, in her second marriage; going out of town for a conference on animal shelters; their son, eight years old and precocious; and a sixteen-year-old daughter from the wife's first marriage, shuffled through foster homes for years and finally ending up back on her doorstep. Added to the four main characters are an extended family of typically small-town weirdos, freaks, and sociopaths who are absolutely charming.

There's no real plot to speak of, though every main character has a specific subplot attached to him, and the four intertwine (think Four Rooms, had Tim Roth's character been more involved in the first three episodes). The book spans Friday to Monday, with each character getting a chapter in each day as the family changes. The changes aren't necessarily earth-shaking, and there isn't the feeling of artificial acceleration one often finds in novels like this, but the characters here are engaging enough that we continue reading despite the relative lack of anything major going on. It'd make a great art film. (In fact, I've already cast it in my head, but I'll keep the names to myself-- if I've got ideas from others about who should be playing what parts in novels, I tend to not be able to flesh the characters out in my head.)

It's not something I'd have ever picked up on my own, but ended up being surprisingly pleasurable. Worth your time.