DREAMS — Estelle Feldman

DREAMS is a story for women of all ages. Is there not a woman who finds herself thinking of the untravelled path, haunted by the memories of a love and a life that could have been, of the boy who loved her -- the one she turned away, wondering, ‘If only...'? What is young Johanna Pilowski to do? In DREAMS, we live Jo's life and dwell in her world filled with envious friends, a caring boyfriend, family conflicts, a father's betrayal and the realization of the depth of her feelings. We dream with her, walk her path, understand her painful yearning to make something of herself, to discover all she can be. But Jo is trapped by a dominating mother, who decides that marriage, not college, is her future. Jo, however, is determined to reach out, to live life, to be more than just a housewife. Mother and daughter are on a collision course which intensifies when, at Jo's first dance, she meets a young man who is ready to offer love, devotion and support. Against a background of a world on the brink of the Korean War, Jo makes a fateful decision. Did forging ahead on her own, putting her dreams first, deny Jo the happiness that could have been hers? Could tragedy have been averted? And when there is hope for the future, will she always be haunted by her fateful decision? Author Estelle Feldman brings to life a most powerful and memorable era -- Brooklyn in the 1940s and 1950s -- when the world was a more innocent place. In each scene in DREAMS, readers young and old will appreciate the richness and authenticity of the nostalgic cultural and historical references woven into Jo's story in a most wonderful, evocative and thoughtful way.