Other Dreams

Rating:
Summary: Look out John Grisham!
Review: All fans of Grisham will love this book. It has all the makings of a really good read. All of us can picture the same scenario happening to us that befalls the somewhat dimwhitted Taterhead... but would we survive? I enjoyed this book from cover to cover and can't wait for the next offering from Mr. Ifkovits! With more books like this, Big John is going to be continually looking over his shoulder trying to keep ahead of this competition!

Rating:
Summary: Look out John Grisham!
Review: All fans of Grisham will love this book. It has all the makings of a really good read. All of us can picture the same scenario happening to us that befalls the somewhat dimwhitted Taterhead... but would we survive? I enjoyed this book from cover to cover and can't wait for the next offering from Mr. Ifkovits! With more books like this, Big John is going to be continually looking over his shoulder trying to keep ahead of this competition!

Rating:
Summary: Prejudice and Forgiveness A review of the novel OTHER DREAMS
Review: Other Dreams by local author Nicholas Ifkovits is good... very good. He doesn't try to be funny; he doesn't try to be clever; nor is Other Dreams intended to simply entertain, though it is immensely entertaining. It is a serious novel about prejudice, and demonstrates that prejudice is the result of ignorance, conceit, misunderstanding, and refusing to see the obvious when it is not convenient or fun to do so. The story is told in 226 pages of prose as sizzling and captivating as that of pop-authors like Grisham and Crichton. But Ifkovits includes something that is woefully lacking in the works of these better-known authors. He includes insight into the nature of real people and the real world. A master of captivating and believable dialogue, Ifkovits exploits this talent effectively in Other Dreams. We find no extraneous detail; the prose is extremely economical. Although Ifkovits proved capable of ornate detail in his novel, Cloud Drops, such scenes are omitted from Other Dreams so that the subject under study, the human spirit, remains clearly in focus. The book is prefaced with an ominous quote from Isaiah, provocatively revealing where the book will take us. The quote tells of a "city [that] becomes a harlot." Harlot, Illinois, is the fictional town in which Other Dreams is set in contemporary times. The book opens as three teens steal eggs from a delivery truck owned by 21-year-old protagonist Taterhead Ellis. Taterhead has had his nickname for so long that no one remembers where it came from. The son of an alcoholic father and a long-suffering mother, he is wrongly considered mentally slow and lazy. It is "Tater" whose "other dreams" include wanting to get a few goats, learning to make cheese, and earning a living. Almost everyone else in Harlot seems hell bent on seeing that even these modest dreams do not come true. Tater chases the young thieves and, in a rage, accidentally rips 13-year-old Erica Erickson's shirt. The thieves, exploiting existing prejudice and misconceptions of Tater, concoct a story. They claim Tater tried to lure them into having sex with him. They played along with Tater long enough to safely escape, they say. In their version of the story, Tater chased them and sexually assaulted Erica, scratching her and exposing her breasts. The kids' story is so transparent that every adult should see through it at a glance. But few do, because it accurately conforms to what they want to believe. Only Tater's mom and a close friend stand by him. Ifkovits does not spend much time developing the characters of Tater's detractors, but caricatures are carefully crafted so that everyone who has lived in small town America will recognize one or more of the bad guys. For instance, there's the small town hero, Bullets O'Brien, whose fame is based on a lie and a few good seasons of basketball for Harlot High. This pretentious hero loses his soul in the course of the book; for he alone, of all the adults of Harlot, knows the kids' story is pure fiction but does nothing to ensure that his peer and distant friend, Tater, gets justice. Ifkovits himself deals Bullets justice at the end, when the two teenaged boys who were involved in the egg incident reveal truthfully that Bullets engaged in inappropriate sex with them. A scene in which the two boys engage in mutual masturbation is among the most compact and honest statements about human sexuality that I have seen in literature. Ifkovits effectively contrasts the innocence of the boys actions with the perverse sexual exploitation of the children by Bullets. Even so, Ifkovits does not react with hysteria to the sex between Bullets and the boys. He expects his readers to be mature enough to be suitably disgusted and to understand what is implied by the spiritual breakdown of the pedophile. The kids are angelic by comparison, and we are led to understand that they will grow beyond the event, whereas Bullets will continue to spiral ever deeper into a hell of his own making. One noteworthy subplot has Tater driving to Rockford, Illinois, each day to sell his goods. In Rockford he meets folks like himself, folks who have modest "other dreams," but who, in fact, are forced to spend time just paying the bills by selling produce from the back of a pickup on the roadside. Ifkovits paints Tater's friends from Rockford with black skin to remind us that blacks constantly suffer the random prejudice now afflicting Tater. These black friends know enough to steer clear of Harlot. But they, like Tater, reveal no evidence of internal scars. Their meager circumstances contrast sharply with their opulent souls. Their spirits are whole, unlike those of the people of Harlot. They're not saints, they're just good folks getting on with life as best they can. I don't like the ending of Other Dreams. Ifkovits eventually forgives the people of Harlot for the injustice heaped upon Tater and those he loves. Tater even continues to live in Harlot, pursuing his other dreams in this bleak spiritual landscape. I suppose the point is that no matter where we go the folks of Harlot surround us. But Ifkovits wasn't looking to dazzle us in the end, only to suggest that good folks can survive and flourish in the hostile climate of Harlot. Which, I grudgingly concede, is not a bad conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: Prejudice and Forgiveness A review of the novel OTHER DREAMS
Review: Other Dreams by local author Nicholas Ifkovits is good... very good. He doesn't try to be funny; he doesn't try to be clever; nor is Other Dreams intended to simply entertain, though it is immensely entertaining. It is a serious novel about prejudice, and demonstrates that prejudice is the result of ignorance, conceit, misunderstanding, and refusing to see the obvious when it is not convenient or fun to do so. The story is told in 226 pages of prose as sizzling and captivating as that of pop-authors like Grisham and Crichton. But Ifkovits includes something that is woefully lacking in the works of these better-known authors. He includes insight into the nature of real people and the real world. A master of captivating and believable dialogue, Ifkovits exploits this talent effectively in Other Dreams. We find no extraneous detail; the prose is extremely economical. Although Ifkovits proved capable of ornate detail in his novel, Cloud Drops, such scenes are omitted from Other Dreams so that the subject under study, the human spirit, remains clearly in focus. The book is prefaced with an ominous quote from Isaiah, provocatively revealing where the book will take us. The quote tells of a "city [that] becomes a harlot." Harlot, Illinois, is the fictional town in which Other Dreams is set in contemporary times. The book opens as three teens steal eggs from a delivery truck owned by 21-year-old protagonist Taterhead Ellis. Taterhead has had his nickname for so long that no one remembers where it came from. The son of an alcoholic father and a long-suffering mother, he is wrongly considered mentally slow and lazy. It is "Tater" whose "other dreams" include wanting to get a few goats, learning to make cheese, and earning a living. Almost everyone else in Harlot seems hell bent on seeing that even these modest dreams do not come true. Tater chases the young thieves and, in a rage, accidentally rips 13-year-old Erica Erickson's shirt. The thieves, exploiting existing prejudice and misconceptions of Tater, concoct a story. They claim Tater tried to lure them into having sex with him. They played along with Tater long enough to safely escape, they say. In their version of the story, Tater chased them and sexually assaulted Erica, scratching her and exposing her breasts. The kids' story is so transparent that every adult should see through it at a glance. But few do, because it accurately conforms to what they want to believe. Only Tater's mom and a close friend stand by him. Ifkovits does not spend much time developing the characters of Tater's detractors, but caricatures are carefully crafted so that everyone who has lived in small town America will recognize one or more of the bad guys. For instance, there's the small town hero, Bullets O'Brien, whose fame is based on a lie and a few good seasons of basketball for Harlot High. This pretentious hero loses his soul in the course of the book; for he alone, of all the adults of Harlot, knows the kids' story is pure fiction but does nothing to ensure that his peer and distant friend, Tater, gets justice. Ifkovits himself deals Bullets justice at the end, when the two teenaged boys who were involved in the egg incident reveal truthfully that Bullets engaged in inappropriate sex with them. A scene in which the two boys engage in mutual masturbation is among the most compact and honest statements about human sexuality that I have seen in literature. Ifkovits effectively contrasts the innocence of the boys actions with the perverse sexual exploitation of the children by Bullets. Even so, Ifkovits does not react with hysteria to the sex between Bullets and the boys. He expects his readers to be mature enough to be suitably disgusted and to understand what is implied by the spiritual breakdown of the pedophile. The kids are angelic by comparison, and we are led to understand that they will grow beyond the event, whereas Bullets will continue to spiral ever deeper into a hell of his own making. One noteworthy subplot has Tater driving to Rockford, Illinois, each day to sell his goods. In Rockford he meets folks like himself, folks who have modest "other dreams," but who, in fact, are forced to spend time just paying the bills by selling produce from the back of a pickup on the roadside. Ifkovits paints Tater's friends from Rockford with black skin to remind us that blacks constantly suffer the random prejudice now afflicting Tater. These black friends know enough to steer clear of Harlot. But they, like Tater, reveal no evidence of internal scars. Their meager circumstances contrast sharply with their opulent souls. Their spirits are whole, unlike those of the people of Harlot. They're not saints, they're just good folks getting on with life as best they can. I don't like the ending of Other Dreams. Ifkovits eventually forgives the people of Harlot for the injustice heaped upon Tater and those he loves. Tater even continues to live in Harlot, pursuing his other dreams in this bleak spiritual landscape. I suppose the point is that no matter where we go the folks of Harlot surround us. But Ifkovits wasn't looking to dazzle us in the end, only to suggest that good folks can survive and flourish in the hostile climate of Harlot. Which, I grudgingly concede, is not a bad conclusion.