Dreams Like Thunder
Dreams Like Thunder takes place on a small Eastern Oregon farm between Baker and Hells Canyon. The story is set over a couple of days in 1959, but part of the family seems less in touch with the 20th century than with the myth of their own pioneer past. The myth varies according to who is doing the telling. It is up to Alberta, who is ten years old and heir to both the farm and the myth, to discover some truth behind the stories—a truth that will help her know who she is and what her own future might be.
Tradepaper: 9781586543013 / $20.00
Casebound: 9781586540340 / $30.00
PRAISE FOR DREAMS LIKE THUNDER
“I’ve read this book twice. It’s dreamy and exciting at the same time. The young girl, the storyteller, is perfectly imagined. Our country’s West the ranchers, the Indians, the deliberately drawn Chinese, the struggling miners,, the struggling farm are lightly drawn but the fierceness, the cruelty are there. The child pulls the life of the place around her close, closer and includes some hopeful exits to France or at least Boise.”
—Grace Paley
“Author Diane Simmons could have turned this novel into something bleak and revisionist, an exposé of rural narrowness and debunking of certain American illusions, but she didn’t. The innocence of Alberta, whose point of view she uses, softens the picture, as does Simmons’ own nostalgia.”
—The Los Angeles Times
