BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS

A young girl’s coming-of-age in a small Southern town takes unusual twists in this historical novel.

After young Memory Feather’s father runs off with a “French hussy” and leaves her and her mother, Virginia, nearly destitute in New Mexico, they reluctantly move to Virginia’s hometown of Belle Cote, Mississippi. Virginia detests the town’s bigotry and insular attitudes, and she dreads being dependent on her loving but judgmental parents, but it’s 1953 and single mothers have few good options. Memory, who narrates the novel retrospectively, was born with a withered hand with only three fingers, and she fears being shunned for it. But Belle Cote has one big attraction: Virginia’s lifelong best friend, Mac. Today, Memory tells us, “we would simply call Mac McFadden gay, one of the countless gay men who flourish in small southern communities.” In 1953, Mac is tolerated—as long as he doesn’t go too far. His boundless charm and the popular art and antique shop he runs help offset the clucks over the raucous parties he hosts in his big, lovely house. Virginia and Memory happily move in with him and, for a while, things are good. Memory is taken by a portrait in Mac’s house, a painting of an arrestingly handsome man he calls his “beautiful dreamer.” Then the man seems to step out of the frame and show up at the front door. Attacks on gay people as well as violence against civil rights activists haunt the story, but the biggest threat to the trio of Memory, Virginia, and Mac is the beautiful Tony Amato. Mac is thrilled by his return. Memory knows Mac has what the town derisively calls “house boys,” but she is fuzzy on what that means. She’s even more puzzled when her mother and Tony begin to flirt. Memory tells us she’s always had the ability to understand the speech of animals, and Mac’s huge black cat, Minerva, keeps telling her, “Things are going to get much worse.” Minerva is right. Belle Cote and its Gulf of Mexico locale are richly evoked, as is New Orleans, and the author handles suspense deftly. Memory’s witty voice moves convincingly between a child’s innocence and a teenager’s dawning awareness—sometimes exhilarating, sometimes terrifying—of adulthood.

An engaging narrator draws the reader through this compelling story of love, betrayal, and identity.