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Dreamers of the Day
Mary Doria Russell
#UB9282
Hardcover, 272 pages; 2008
$20.00
Mary Doria Russell has included all sorts of favorite Bas Bleu elements in her newest novel, set after the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918. The protagonist, Agnes Shanklin, is a long-suffering schoolteacher who has inherited a modest fortune from her controlling, critical mother and other family members, all lost to the flu. A kindly store clerk helps transform her via a new wardrobe and an introduction to cosmetics. Agnes decides to travel to Egypt, and she takes her dachshund, Rosie, with her. In Cairo, she meets T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, the young Winston Churchill, and a courtly German—is he a spy?—who becomes her lover. It's all very dramatic, romantic, and highly improbable. But such fun to read!
(EE)
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