THE LAKE OF DREAMS
by Kim Edwards
Viking
(January 2011, $26.95, 400 pages)

Reviewed by Sweetman


Kim Edward’s greatest accomplishment in her second novel, The Lake of Dreams, is proving there is truth in the jinx of the sophomore slump. The novel is a confusing and complicated yarn about Lucy Jarrett’s self-discovery and unexpected journey into her family’s fascinating historical past. Her family history both reveals and helps her resolve the demons of the nomadic life she’s had since the mysterious death of her father just before she entered college.

Lucy is unemployed and lives in Japan, as adrift as a rudderless boat on a tumultuous sea. Her boyfriend, Yoshi, is a Japanese architect immersed in his work but able to rise to the surface long enough to realize that when Lucy gets a distress call from her brother Blake to say that their mother’s been injured in a car accident, she needs to go home. Lucy’s return to her little village in Upstate New York on the shore of the Lake of Dreams is not only an oft-retold tale of one woman’s journey through her past to make peace with her present,  it’s also a romp into a family’s history just waiting for a prodigal woman to stitch the pieces together as she attempts to find peace with her life.

Edwards’ use of multiple themes creates a metaphorical conglomeration; unfortunately her ingredients make a bad brew. Lucy’s personal upheaval in her fragile relationship with Yoshi is indicated by the cosmic influences of Hailey’s Comet that result in a shift of Japan’s tectonic plates in the novel’s opening. There is the ebb and flow of water throughout the novel; Lucy is a hydrologist and grew up a lake. Confusing but convenient dream sequences develop character and move the plot. Lucy’s old boyfriend, Keegan Fall, is a master stained glass artisan whose knowledge of the art gives Lucy insight and understanding to her family’s past. Lucy possess an inquisitive nature and good fortune that no one in her immediate family has the slightest insight or desire to look inside a locked window box in her childhood home whose contents allow her to piece together a remarkable feminist in her distant family history. Imagine the marvel of that discovery in the short span of two weeks!

Edward makes relating to the marvels of Lucy’s discoveries very difficult because her revelations are so convenient, so obvious and, therefore, so contrived. Lucy’s dilemma over her doubts about her relationship with Yoshi are not compelling enough to make the reader feel her angst. Her return home to confront her reasons for leaving home in the first place are shallow. Along the way, Edwards throws far too many obvious clues in the reader’s path. Lucy’s revelations are overly long anticipated and make it an absolute grind to read through ten pages of sentimental muck to arrive at the very conclusion that Edwards pointed to in the previous chapter.

Edwards also mistreats her secondary characters. They are shallow and exist for the sole purpose of allowing Lucy to wallow in her playpen of self-discovery. Apparently life stood still at the Lake of Dreams while Lucy was jet-setting around the world, doubting her love for Yoshi. The raison d’etre  for the people in Lucy’s past is to help her come to grips with her happy future. There is an underlying smug entitlement steeped in this seemingly endless saga that reveals itself fully when the author has one of her characters happily enjoying her first novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.

Edwards has a talent of describing physical places and the artistic process. Her gift would have been better bestowed upon a travel journal for the Finger Lakes region and stained glass artisans of upstate New York. Don’t bother to spend time at The Lake of Dreams unless you’re in the mood for sophomoric fantasy.


photo: Aubrey Falconer
Sweetman is a writer on the North Shore of Massachusetts. She has written numerous short stories, essays, book reviews and is currently working on a novel. She lives with her family and when not writing, she enjoys beekeeping, bicycling, reading and pondering the odd behaviors of her two terriers. She writes under the name Sweetman. You can follow some of her writing on her Wordpress blog.