Title: The Dream Walker
Author: Victoria Carless
Genre: YA Literary Fiction
Publisher: Hachette/Lothian
Published: 27th June 2017
Format: Paperback
Pages: 265
Price: $19.99Synopsis: The weight of a secret can drag you under . . .
A tender coming-of-age young-adult novel for fans of Gary Crew, Vikki Wakefield and Craig Silvey.
Sixteen-year-old Lucy Hart has been counting the days till she can get the hell out of Digger’s Landing – a small Queensland fishing hamlet home to fifteen families, a posse of mongrel dogs, and Parkers Corner Store (no apostrophe and nowhere near a corner).
But just like the tides Lucy’s luck is on the turn, and as graduation nears her escape plans begin to falter; her best friend, Polly, is dropping out of school to help pay the bills, and Tom has been shipped off to boarding school, away from the flotsam of this place. And then there’s Lucy’s nightlife, which is filled with dreams that just don’t seem to belong to her at all . . .
When the fish stop biting, like they did when her mum was still around, Lucy realises she isn’t the only one with a secret.
~*~
Victoria Carless’s debut novel out this June, The Dream Walker, is Lucy Hart’s story in the year following her mother’s death, beginning with a fishing trip that results in a lack of fish, and ongoing accusations hurled at Lucy and her father, usually by the bully of Digger’s Landing, Gavin Lawler, whose bullying extends beyond the school bus, to his youngest sister and anyone else he perceives as weak. Lucy’s coping with the loss of her mother, driven to her death by a myriad of things, secrets that Lucy has been trying to uncover, the departure of her good friend Tom to boarding school in the city, and the ongoing bullying the Lawlers, led by Gavin, haul at her any time they can. She is counting the days until she can leave, and find her own place, away from the whispering and the stares, away from the accusations that her and her father are taking more than their share of fish during a time the fish aren’t biting and the fishing economy of Digger’s Landing is flopping around like a fish out of water, gasping for breath. In all of this, Lucy’s only friend is her dog, Glen, who knows her secrets, and who never leaves her side. At school, at least at the start of the year, she has her best friend Polly, the first friend she made when she moved with her parents to Digger’s Landing, who shares her Islander heritage (it is not specified which nation) and food with Lucy, until her father sends her off to work, forcing her to drop out of school to help the family make ends meet. After this, Lucy’s world begins to unravel. She is targeted and bullied by Gavin, and is dealing with her own grief, and her father’s, following her mother’s death. Her only distraction, helping alcoholic Syd Lawler, Gavin’s father, learn to read is short lived, and she is plagued by dreams that aren’t hers – dreams that belong to the people of Digger’s Landing. At first, Lucy is surprised that her dreaming has led her to dream about Mrs Parker, and the bus driver, Mr Sheriff, and a drowning boy, who keeps appearing. Is it Tom, her friend who has run away to the city, harbouring his own secrets about where he wants to go, and who he really is? His secrets that he has to hide from his parents, from everyone at Digger’s Landing, because they might not accept him for who he is are ones he’s too scared to share with Lucy, the one person who would have accepted him for who he is. Or is it someone else who is lost, with the water so far over their head, they can’t cope. Or is it more literal, and a dark omen of events that are yet to happen? Lucy is determined to find out, but with everyone keeping secrets, including her, will it be too late to do anything? Or will her own secret be revealed, and used against her?
At the beginning of the novel, all the Lawler siblings are shown as bullies, who think they own Digger’s Landing and who think they can always get their way, and not get caught out. It soon transpires that little Sadie is mistreated and bullied, and she runs away, to the safety of Glen and Lucy, and when Gavin and older sister Talia are bullying Lucy, she stands by her side, refusing to leave and go home where she is no doubt bullied further. Sadie ends up helping Lucy towards the end, and I like to think that little Sadie got a happy ending of sorts, away from a mother and siblings who didn’t notice when she ran away or wore the same clothes for a week.
The Dream Walker is heart breaking but at the same time, hopeful, yet realistic. Whilst the instances of bullying are not graphic, they are enough to grab your attention and they are well written, and hopefully, it will start a conversation about the themes explored in this literary fiction for young adults aged fourteen and older about alcohol, suicide, bullying and grief to help them deal with bullying or grief throughout their lives.
A surreal story set in a real world, a town failing to make ends meet, where everyone is fighting for survival against each other, and a town where anyone who is different in any way is a target for harassment and bullying. Within this novel, Victoria Carless eloquently deals with themes of bullying and harassment, suicide, grief and alcoholism, showing how being bullied can impact you, and how isolation because you’re different and feel you might not be accepted can lead to tragedies or near tragedies, and the fracturing of families within a town, allowing readers to engage with these themes through the characters and learn about them and how they can impact and change lives. It is a story that has moments of hope and moments of darkness. It has small triumphs but not so small failures, and it has a realistic ending – where not everything works out in a happily ever after, but resolves what needs to be resolved, and allows the reader to imagine the rest for themselves.
#LoveOzYa #AWW2017
