Review of Sunny Dreams

Sunny Dreams

The mystery of Sunny's abduction never feels forced or separated from anything else in the novel. It is the backbone. Violet's journey into adulthood evolves in between the plot, weaving in beautifully.


The Uniter

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Sunny Dreams

Sunny Dreams comes across as understated and matter-of-fact. In fact, for a novel that starts with the broad-daylight kidnapping of a baby and suicide of the baby's mother, and ends with the murder of a black migrant worker in Depression-era Winnipeg, Sunny Dreams lives up to its peaceful, almost laid-back title. There's a clamness and understated quality to the first-person narration of Violet, the older sister of the kidnapped Sunny Palmer, that belies the underlying emotional turbulence and adds to the mystery. For instance, the description of the mother's suicide sounds almost like a newspaper report or, more likely, the thoughts of someone trying to keep emotions in check:

"On August 16th, that summer of 1925, the first cool day announcing the coming of fall, my mother took Dad's Ford and drove it at full speed into the brick and limestone wall of the Nutty Club building downtown. Her neck broke and her skull smashed and it was over for her. I guess the idea of dragging herself through the winter ahead without Sunny was more than she could face."

Set in what could be called a prequel to Preston's Frank Foote mysteries (including The Rain Barrel Baby, The Geranium Girls and Cherry Bites), the story brings togetehr what at first seems like two completely separate incidents: Sunny's kidnapping in a downtown Winnipeg restaurant in 1925, and the appearance of Benny and Jackson, two drifters who are hired on to help rebuild the Palmer's garage in 1936.

Interspersed with the overhanging mystery is the story of teenaged Violet--who lives with her fairly well-to-do lawyer father and her First World War nurse aunt--and her coming of age during the pivotal summer of 1936. The connection to Frank Foote has Violet befriending Frank's father, Fraser, while Frank's grandfather, Ennis, is a patrolman who helps with the search for Sunny.

Benny and Jackson camp out in the Palmer's backyard while working on the garage. Violet develops a crush on Jackson, who is young and handsome and seems to come from a wealthy if somewhat vague background in the Westmount area of Montreal. Later, they are joined by Tag--a 'Negro,' as Violet describes him, who is 'the thinnest human being I had ever seen.' Tag says is looking for his brother, who left Detroit and hasn't been heard from since. It is Tag's vicious murder that sets off the second mystery in the story, overlaying a pall of sadness on what should be a happy ending.

One of Preston's strong points is her ability to bring characters to life quickly and effectively, with writing that is brisk without being busy: "I could barely remember my mother by now. She was something inside me that caused my jaw to clench and that curled my hands into fists. And she was a face in old photographs that Dad insisted on keeping around. They lost all meaning for me. They became less familiar than the cartoons in the funny papers."

Violet's first-person narration is consisten and witty. At the transition point between childhood and womanhood, she tries to act tough and wise: smoking, developing a jealous streak when she thinks her aunt is making a move on Jackson, getting drunk, and generally trying to decide what she is going to do with the rest of her life. She alternately acts chuldishly and like a mature adult. She acts in a purely selfish manner and she acts as if she were the most altruistic person. But most of all, she acts with the suppressed memories of her kidnapped sister and her dead mother propelling her as they fester within, threatening to bubble to the surface.

Preston does a good job of combing nostalgic and engaging historical fiction (giving us pinpoint details of what the Winnipeg of 1936 looked like) with a plausible mystery that provides a solid twist at the end. And all in the understated manner that defines the writing in this book: "That night Fraser got hold of some lemon gin and I got drunk for the second time in my life. We mixed it with ginger ale and drank the whole mickey between us down by the river, across from the icehouse. It was pleasant; the gin made me fuzzy and dull, which was exactly what I wanted. Fraser walked me home at midnight and kissed me on the lips.


— Michael Mirolla Event

Sunny Dreams

Alison Preston's forte is the homely drama, and Sunny Dreams is perfect. Set mostly in the darkest days of the Depression, it takes on a parent's worst nightmare: the stolen baby... Preston is a dab hand with setting, and her Norwood Flats neighbourhood, full of engaging characters and lots of secrets, is very well done. Fans will note that the father and grandfather of her series detective, Frank Foote, are beautifully presented.


The Globe & Mail

Sunny Dreams

A Sunny Life 
Preston's "one thing leads to another" style is flawless

All four of Alison Preston's previous mysteries have been set in her hometown of Winnipeg. Her latest, Sunny Dreams, continues the tradition, with a slight twist.  

"Everything I've written has taken place in the same neighborhood, Norwood in Winnipeg.   I thought it would be fun to do a book that didn't take place in the here and now." 

Preston portrays a believable historial setting.  Sunny Dreams begins in 1925 when six-year-old Violet's baby sister Sunny is taken from her carriage.  Fast-forward to the summer of 1936: Canada is in the midst of the Great Depression, and polio is stretching its deadly claws into the homes of the middle class.  A man was tried and executed for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, a resolution of sorts, but there is no resolution for Violet and her father.  Sunny has never been found.  
This hot, dry, dusty summer, Violet's father, a wealthy lawyer, hires two young travelling men, Benoit Bateau and Jackson Shirt, to build a garage for his Buick.  

It is a pivotal summer for the now 17-year-old Violet, as she struggles to find her place in a world that is both worrying and wonderful.  The characters around her follow their own threads that interweave with hers to form a rich tapestry.  

Preston learns about her characters by watching them.  "Just the way the different characters react to things that take place, like the stealing of the baby from the carriage, helps me to get to know who that person is." 

She admires writers who say things uccinctly, and she strives for that quality in her own work.  

"I just want what [my characters] say to be enough, without having to say that she said it sadly or that she said it wiping tears from her eyes. I would just like to be able to say it without embellishing it, especially in a way where I would intrude into it." 

Preston wrote her first book when she was forty.  "I hadn't even thought of it being a mystery," she says. "A lot of reading I've done has been mysteries and I guess that has influenced my writing  a lot.
"I think it is sort of natural that what you enjoy reading is what you end up wanting to write yourself." 

Preston's previous works – Cherry Bites, The Geranium Girls, The Rain Barrel Baby, and A Blue and Golden Year – have all begun, she says, with a situation or even a single image or name.  
"I never work from an outline.  It's just really a matter of sitting down and putting an idea on paper – whether it's the name Jackson Shirt or a baby in a rain barrel or a woman lying in a field with mushrooms growing out of her mouth," she says.  
"Then the characters who are going to come upon this situation, how do they react to it? And I just take it from there.  Usualy I find that one thing that leads to another." 


— Shirley Byers Prairie books Now

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