The Dreaming Game: A Portrait Of A Passionate Life

Rating:
Summary: A touching tribute to an admirable woman
Review: Author and historian Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr. has scrap-booked the life of his brilliant and very creative mother, Dorothy, through memories and her own letters.

Most of the letters were written to Dorothy's roommate and best friend Kate (they met in grade school) and to her husband Phil. Her respect and support for the man who was to be her husband never wavered, despite the complex problems of the Depression, which they weathered early in their marriage.

It was the Depression and the deprivations the family underwent that spurred Dorothy to become a writer. Putting it in perspective, she and Phil were from a comfortable, educated milieu, and having to live with only the maid --- and not both maid and nurse --- was considered a hardship for a mother of that ilk. There is a telling phase of their young lives when the couple decides to "simply withdraw," that is, to live within their means in some lesser suburb where they will not be tempted by meetings with their social circle to overspend. It was apparently the respectable alternative for the middle classes, a discreet way to manage a household without becoming so dragged down by bills that one fell in status.

Into this breach Dorothy, with the help of her friend (and her maid), played with the idea of writing children's books, toiling over her first effort as though it was worthy of the Pulitzer, and suffering the humiliation of trying to illustrate it with but a rudimentary understanding of drawing and a great deal of determination. One of the children suggested she just do the writing and let "a real person" do the drawing. After various fits and starts, the book Junket was happily published and enthusiastically reviewed.

In the background, as she struggled to earn extra money for the family of four, Dorothy became pregnant. Knowing that the next child would put an intolerable burden on her husband and herself, she endeavored to abort it. Endangering her health and suffering both physical and emotional trauma, she ultimately miscarried.

Dorothy also vied with a "fierce, domineering" mother-in-law, educated her children by starting her own school, developed as an author (Pat the Bunny, and Twenty Days, co-authored with Phil Jr.), struggled to overcome the requisite blocks and mini-depressions that beset most highly creative people, and found ways to live on once her beloved husband passed away.

All of this is told in letters that are indeed passionate, as Dorothy was fond of saying, "beyond words." Luckily, her son found the words to record her story. Dorothy's life serves as a challenge to strong-willed yet feminine women who seek to reach beyond the confines of duty and make a place for themselves in the wider world.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott, author of WITH IT: A Year on the Carnival Trail (Behler Publications, 2004).