“Beautiful Dreamers” is Mississippi author Minrose Gwin’s immersive work of historical fiction centered on the coming of age of Memory “Mem” Feather, an imaginative child who talks to animals and has a three-fingered hand she tenderly calls her “paw.”
Set during the 1950s Lavender Scare (a spinoff of McCarthy’s anti-communist Red Scare that targeted homosexuals), social upheaval rips into Mem’s fictional Gulf Coast town as she struggles to make sense of the world. Guided by her pragmatic mother, Virginia, Mem is indelibly shaped by the unique characters who flow in and out of their lives as they seek to expand the definition of family.
Mem is a worrywart who believes her ears are “set to a different pitch from all the other human ears of the world,” allowing her to communicate with animals. Perhaps the voices are an outlet for her anxiety, or perhaps her anxiety manifests the voices. Either way, Mem is convinced her paw is the source of her “magical” ability, and she refuses surgery despite the physical and social hardships caused by her twisted hand and missing digits. In a lonely world, her animal relationships provide a camaraderie she isn’t willing to risk.
Gwin’s melancholic story is narrated by Mem as an adult looking back on her tumultuous adolescence from the safety of maturity. This perspective infuses the retelling of her youth with profound insight, all while capturing the befuddlement of her innocence with impressive clarity.
When the novel opens, Mem is living with Virginia in an Albuquerque motel room after her military father abandons them. Despite her circumstances, Virginia refuses to return to her affluent family in Belle Cote, Mississippi. She would rather trade housekeeping services for room and board in a seedy motel than live in a town with segregated drinking fountains.
Feeling neglected and isolated, Mem struggles to understand her mom’s decision. But Virginia is secretive and doesn’t discuss personal things. Instead, she lets Mem discover for herself that the Dear John letter Mem’s father sends severing their marriage doesn’t acknowledge Mem’s existence. They don’t talk about where Virginia goes when she stays out all night wearing stockings and red patent-leather high heels, leaving Mem home alone to wonder and fret.
Virginia is especially private with the letters she writes to her childhood best friend, Milton “Mac” McFadden, who lives in Belle Cote. Mem’s curiosity goes into overdrive as her mom scribbles “like a madwoman, her non-writing hand shielding the pages from my prying eyes.”
Despite Virginia’s furtiveness, Mem receives her as a loving mother and recognizes her mom is battling challenges as well — albeit entirely different from her own. In a touching and profoundly accurate observation, Mem describes Virginia’s pain as a wound that “wasn’t visible in a physical deformity like mine. She was like a burned tree after a forest fire, sap-hardened on the outside, the inside hollowed out.”
When her parents threaten to sue for custody, Virginia is left with no other option but to move back to Belle Cote. Excited for the opportunity to connect with Virginia’s past, Mem is mesmerized by Mac, a polarizing figure with “electric blue eyes and a full mane of hair the color of the sun.” Mac is a physicist who left his job at the Pentagon right before President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1953 executive order was enacted, prohibiting government employees from engaging in “sexual perversion,” as homosexuality was categorized at the time.
But Mac possesses smarts, financial independence and determination to ignore mistreatment that bolsters him enough to live an openly gay lifestyle despite being challenged by the citizens of Belle Cote. He owns an art gallery called Beautiful Dreamer — named after the nude portrait of a man hanging in the converted French schoolhouse — and offers Virginia a job.
Not long after arriving in Belle Cote, Virginia is angered by her parents’ bigotry and moves into Mac’s home with Mem, who starts to view Mac as a father figure. Their relationship fills a critical void in both of their lives but also complicates things for them. Mac is victimized by hate crimes, and Mem is expelled from Catholic school and socially ostracized.
As the harsh reality of intolerance hits them from a multitude of angles, Mem struggles to discern right from wrong. The social attitudes promoted by her grandparents and the larger community contradict lessons learned at home with her mom and Mac. She longs to ask questions, to be honest and speak her truth. But doing so provokes consequences for those she loves. Thwarted at every turn, Mem relies on her animal voices, specifically her cat Minerva, for solace.
Then one day the gorgeous naked man in the “Beautiful Dreamer” painting walks through Mac’s front door. It doesn’t take long for the hyper-charming and devilishly handsome Antonio “Tony” Amato to brew trouble in all three of their lives.
Mem’s youthful puzzlement gains a new target as she struggles to understand how Tony plays into their dynamic. As her confusion and anxiety expand into teenage panic attacks and an eating disorder, everyone in her family struggles to overcome the trauma inflicted on them by an angry and merciless world.
Minrose Gwin has not composed a cozy, romantic glimpse into midcentury queer life; “Beautiful Dreamers” is an honest tale. It explores the long-term effects of bigotry and hatred through the prism of flawed, big-hearted characters who are trying to do the right thing.
FICTION
by Minrose Gwin
Hub City Press, 304 pages, $28
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