Tomorrow's Dream
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REVIEW BY ANNE CALLAHAN
No matter the time and place, basic birth and death situations reach a deep chord in all of us, and two of today's best fiction writers know how to play the notes uncommonly well. In Tomorrow's Dream, the team of Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn have once again written a moving story about healing from broken dreams. The third title in their successful collaboration, this tightly written novel explores the anguish of young life snuffed out among characters who were first introduced in the authors' 1997 bestseller, Another Homecoming. Set in Washington, D.C., in the 1960s, this title presents Kyle and Kenneth just a few months before the birth of their much-wanted first child. But their infant son Charles is born with a serious heart defect like that of Kyle's brother Joel and lives only a few weeks, never coming home to the decorated and fully supplied nursery. Following the loss of her child, Kyle becomes a stoic, responding with icy bitterness to all, even the pastor of the church where she and Kenneth had been so involved. The superficial life of Washington society diverts her attention from what she cannot face, and she spends more time with Abigail, her adoptive, socialite mother. Sorrow follows sorrow, and Joel dies, leaving his young Mennonite wife Ruthie and their healthy, newborn son. Kyle, reacting as Abigail would have, immediately plans to adopt little Samuel, but Ruthie will not even consider it. Once more Kyle has lost the promise of a child. How she rediscovers God's gift of peace and ever-abiding love is both heartbreaking and deeply satisfying. In spare, tightly written scenes with characters from different levels of society, Tomorrow's Dream reminds us that our family and friends often hold us up to the throne of God when we cannot bear to approach Him ourselves. It is also a call to revalue the gift of human life which seems so cheap in today's world. Anne Callahan is a freelance reviewer and editor in Chicago, IL.
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