The Big Dream (Trade Paper)

Description

At Dream Inc., a lifestyle magazine publisher, people are struggling not only to do their jobsor even to keep thembut to fall in love and stay that way, to have friends, to be good parents and good children, to eat lunch and answer the phone and be happy. Which can be pretty interesting . . . even on company time.InThe Big Dream, acclaimed short story writer Rebecca Rosenblum offers a suite of linked stories exploring the working world in all its dark and humorous complexity, creating anIn Our Timefor our time.Rebecca Rosenblums debut collectionOncedrew comparison to Alice MunrosDance of the Happy Shades (Quill & Quire). She works in publishing in Toronto, Ontario.Rosenblum writes with exquisite attention to detail, not to mention an astute sense of comedic timing: her uniquely troubled and wholly convincing characters should appeal to readers of commercial and serious fiction alike.Canadian LiteratureThe prose in these 13 stories contains rueful truthsswift portraitsand depths of feelingQuarterly Conversation[These stories] contain images so evocative that they vibrate. Rosenblum is an elegant stylist and spiky humorist; her language is precise, her ear for dialogue almost faultless.The Globe & MailFor readers who want fiction to engage with the world we live in, Rosenblums work matters.Prairie FireIn her spry, satirical new collection, Rosenblum (Once) presents 13 dialogue-rich and highly readable vignettes featuring a colorful cast of characters who work for Dream Inc., a foundering Canada-based lifestyle-magazine publisher. Theres the Vice President of Human Resources, forced to lay off customer-service reps while her mother lays dying in a local hospital; the college student on the verge of a nervous breakdown who works in the cafeteria; the corporate-branding specialist experimenting with lesbianism; and the retired exec who cant quite let go of the dream. None of her main characters are editors; they come from other areas of the publishing industry, and they struggle with such mundane decisions as where to eat lunch and what to do after work. Rosenblum makes these challenges read like monumental events in her characters lives (which they no doubt are), and deserves admiration for her well-chosen details and nuanced protagonists.PUBLISHERS WEEKLYEach short story is rich with memorable dialogue, capturing the empty banter, complaints, and flirtations that often fill the halls of an office. Rosenblums natural dialogue and descriptive prose result in a collection that successfully depicts the complex balancing act between home and work that so often define the lives of office workers who struggle to stay afloat inside and outside of their cubicles.ThisRosenblum is an entertaining master of minutia, she has a prodigious ability to take ordinary details and restyle or adorn them in just the slightest way, transforming the mundane into the eccentric. The stories in The Big Dream come alive with orange-juice stained pillows, Zellers jeans, and jam sandwiches The Big Dream thoroughly succeeds Rebecca Rosenblum is a gifted chronicler of our time.The RoverRosenblums characters are funny and human they are distinct and engaging. Its lovely, moving writing.Quill & Quire