Dreamers of the Day

It would be difficult to start the year with a better - or more appropriate, but more on that later - book. Several years ago I loved Mary Doria Russell's Doc, which set me on a Wild West reading spree. Moreover, Hero remains one of the finest biographies I have read, and Gertrude Bell was nothing if not extraordinary. Hence, there was no way I was missing out on Dreamers of the Day, written by Russell, co-starring Lawrence, and with some serious cameo appearances by Bell.

Agnes Shankin is an unassuming school teacher from Ohio, alone and lonely following the death of her entire family in the influenza pandemic that swept America on the heels of World War I. She is dogged by a lifetime of maternal criticism, but has the happy fortune, at least, of inheriting three modest estates as the result of her aforementioned circumstances. Seeking a chance of scenery, she departs for Egypt rather on a whim. There, she finds herself the honored guest of none other than T.E. Lawrence, who knew Agnes's sister when the latter was a missionary in the Middle East before the war. Through Lawrence, Agnes is thrust into a high-powered circle of British actors who are gathered in Egypt for the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference. (Not incidentally, it is at this conference where the fate of the Middle Eastern tribes was sealed, their borders drawn, and so many subsequent troubles sown.)

Agnes is likeable, witty, sympathetic without being cloying...in short, everything I would expect from Russell. Russell's language is bright, the characters - both historical and fictional figures alike - are well-developed, and the story is reasonable: the reader knows it is fiction, but it's constructed in a way that it could have happened. Russell has clearly done her homework. In short, Dreamers of the Day is a joy to read.

And then I got to the last page. Now, this is a book whose topic is relevant for any number of reasons these days, unfortunately, but I was unprepared for the penultimate paragraph, which is short, pithy, and can be repeated here without spoiling a thing: And never buy anything from a man who's selling fear. Reading that, I was certain Russell had whipped this book up in the last year. She didn't; it was was published in 2008. Nevertheless, the words hold true, and perhaps never has an ending felt more appropriate to me than that.

Four stars.