In the Land of Dreams by
Lawrence Swaim opens with a man being checked into a transitional house of Bellevue
Hospital after revealing suicidal thoughts in the emergency room the night
before. He believes he is being stalked by his ancestor who lived in the area
in the 1680s when New York was New Amsterdam. The story then shifts to the
point of view of the ancestor, Barnt, who is running his business, raising his
family and living his life. When his action leads to a curse because he has
knowledge of a vast treasure that he never told anyone about and now he must
tell his descendant to lift the curse on the family. Is Barnt a figment of the
man’s imagination, a ghost or are they one and the same?
In the Land of Dreams
was very hard to read. The open chapter failed to capture my interest but I
read on hoping it would…and it didn’t. The end of the book tells the reader
that the story was a morality tale about how America, once the Land of Dreams,
has become the Land of Desire for unlimited money and power. That would be okay
if the narrator then doesn’t insult the reader buy saying “Was not the idea of
a treasure quest a big part of what kept you reading?...Grow up, why don’t you?”
The book is way too long and overly detailed and jumps back and forth which
made it hard to stay focused. I do not recommend In the Land of Dreams.
In the Land of Dreams
is available in
paperback and eBook
