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Summary: Advance Praise for Charles Johnson's DREAMER
Review: "Charles Johnson's DREAMER is a beautiful and heartfelt novel of substance; intriguing and cleverly rendered, it has a plot that entertains even as it throws light on the life of Martin Luther King during that epoch of America's struggles with civil rights." --Oscar Hijuelos, author of THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE, winner of the Pulitzer prize
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Summary: Advance Praise for Charles Johnson's DREAMER
Review: "Compelling and profound, DREAMER is a book fully equal to its monumental subject, Martin Luther King, Jr. Charles Johnson is one of the great treasures of modern American literature." --Robert Olen Butler, author of A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
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Summary: Advance Praise for Charles Johnson's DREAMER
Review: "In DREAMER, Charles Johnson has given us an ALL THE KING'S MEN for our time. This, however, is no imitation. This is Charles Johnson, an American original. There is the sense of the spiritual, of the flesh, of the mud, the water, the stone, the wood, and the glass. The weights and dangers of life are measured against the nobility of courage and vision. There is humor, there is tragedy, and there is heartbreaking recognition of the possibility that human suffering, no matter how great, can blast out a torch in the darkness." --Stanley Crouch, author of ALWAYS IN PURSUIT: FRESH AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, 1995-1997
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Summary: Advance Praise for Charles Johnson's DREAMER
Review: "Magnificent, and like everything Charles Johnson does, deep and funny. As a writer, he goes places few of us dare to go. He's one of the most gifted writers I've read, and is an inspiration to all writers." --James McBride, author of THE COLOR OF WATER
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Summary: Advance Praise for Charles Johnson's DREAMER
Review: "With this new book, Charles Johnson confirms his position at the summit of American letters. DREAMER is an inspired and glorious achievement, infused with its author's expansive wisdom, his vibrant historical and moral imagination, and most of all, his heart. It is a transcendent, brilliant book." --David Guterson, author of SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS
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Summary: Great writing, great ideas--but what happened to Chaym?
Review: A provocative novel from a wonderful writer set around a fascinating character--MLK. Johnson does well both in making Martin seem very real, yet in not "overusing" him--the real protagonists are three "Movement" members who move in his orbit and are themselves complex, interesting characters. Lots of food for thought here, including musings on the (sinful) nature of humanity, repeatedly amplified by the mythic story of Cain and Abel, which Johnson uses on several levels. The best part of this book is Johnson's thoughtful condemnation of extreme (intolerant) ideology, as exhibited by separatists black and white. The one flaw, in my view, was Johnson's failure to follow through on the use of MLK's double, Chaym. As the plot nears its climax Chaym is co-opted by the FBI, which intends to use him to discredit MLK--but then Chaym simply disappears from the story. Still, a very worthwhile book.
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Summary: Johnson continues tradition of "moral fiction."
Review: Charles Johnson's Dreamer offers a riveting portrayal of thelast stages of Dr. King's career. By alternating descriptions of"the minister's" personal ruminations with the first-person observations and experiences of the narrator (a somewhat Charles Johnson-like Matthew Bishop), Johnson creates the convincing illusion at least of Dr. King as a complete and real being at that particular time in his life.While the obvious subject matter of his plot is compelling--overwhelming, almost, in its rendition of perhaps the most significant and ramifying social movement in American history--it is worth observing that Johnson continues consciously (and ably) to work in the tradition of "moral fiction" he learned, absorbed, and finally inherited from his own great teacher, John Gardner. That tradition holds as a central tenet Gardner's defintion of a "good book" as "one that, for its time, is wise, sane, and magical, one that clarifies life and tends to improve it." While Dreamer, like Johnson's other fiction, obviously meets that criterion in general terms, Gardner's more concrete influence is subtly apparent throughout. For example, the scene in which Matthew ponders Dr. King's stitching his speeches and sermons together from various sources so skilfully that it is hard to tell where one voice ends and another begins recalls the strikingly similar techniques Gardner used in his fiction. Johnson doesn't make the explicit comparison, but it's obviously in his mind--as is the fact that both Gardner and Dr. King were accused, more or less, of plagiarism by some who did not understand their methods. Some readers have been puzzled at least by what they have seen as loose ends in Dreamer's conclusion: we never learn what those klutzy FBI men were up to, or what finally "happens" to Chaym. Such complaints, I think, seriously misunderstand what Johnson the novelist is up to at the end of his book. The ending is deliberately and meaningfully ambiguous, intentionally uncertain--although clues enough exist. "What became of Chaym?" is a very important question that Johnson purposefully refuses to answer explicitly, and it is not the only such question.
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Summary: Creative look gives insight into King's life
Review: Dreamer by Charles Johnson gives a unique look at the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. By using a fictitious double, who must examine his own life in light of the civil rights era, Johnson allows the reader to see both King and Chaym Smith, the man who would be his stand-in, struggle with issues of nonviolence and its meaning in a violent world. This well-researched novel presents a fresh look at King's life by allowing artistic license to soar while it never clouds the truth. Although some details are the product of the author's imagination, others are well documented among King scholars. The presentation of fact in the environment of creative detail allows a glimpse of King that I have seen nowhere else. The story moves quickly and never digresses into detail that is irrelevant to the narrative, but gives enough pertinent detail to help those unfamiliar with the setting, while convincing those who know more details concerning King's life that the author is also a brilliant scholar. A GOOD READ.
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Summary: Creative look gives insight into King's life
Review: Dreamer by Charles Johnson gives a unique look at the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. By using a fictitious double, who must examine his own life in light of the civil rights era, Johnson allows the reader to see both King and Chaym Smith, the man who would be his stand-in, struggle with issues of nonviolence and its meaning in a violent world. This well-researched novel presents a fresh look at King's life by allowing artistic license to soar while it never clouds the truth. Although some details are the product of the author's imagination, others are well documented among King scholars. The presentation of fact in the environment of creative detail allows a glimpse of King that I have seen nowhere else. The story moves quickly and never digresses into detail that is irrelevant to the narrative, but gives enough pertinent detail to help those unfamiliar with the setting, while convincing those who know more details concerning King's life that the author is also a brilliant scholar. A GOOD READ.
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Summary: Walking a mile in his shoes.
Review: DREAMER held a lot of promise and was a very deep read. The story involves Chaym Smith, who offers himself as a decoy/stand-in to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., because he bears too familiar a resemblence to the good Doctor. Told from the perspectives of Dr. King and one of his aides, Matthew Bishop, the novel took us from marches to meetings involving heads of state to the breakdown of Chaym's personality, which was a complete 360 degrees from that of man he was hired to impersonate. The author was able to structure the personalities of the players involved and made the fictional charaters of Matthew and Chaym convincing and compelling. However, the book was so weighed down with thoughts and agendas that were so complex in context, that it was a little hard to get back on track, especially when you have forgotten where you left off, and you are still reading the book. A good read for those wanting something different and four-dimensional.
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