Dreaming

Carolyn See turns her attention to her own family in this memoir, using it to question what the American Dream has meant. She frames her account as a history of how alcohol and drugs ran through her relatives over roughly a century, a period longer than she first assumed. She suggests that this family past, clouded and distorted and full of hidden joys, may stand in for a larger unwritten history of the country.

The clan she describes was marked by dysfunction that seemed almost inherited, yet the book does not present them as victims or preach against vice. See recounts quarrels, separations and lean years with dry humor and no self-pity, and she also records the celebrations and hopefulness her relatives held onto. Their experience stands for the many people who chased the bright American promise, found it out of reach, and worked to make the lives they had shine as much as possible.

The memoir is about longing, imagination and the ways people remake themselves, and about getting back up and moving forward after setbacks. Through her family's story, See argues that a wild, unruly way of living, with its costs and rewards, has shaped who Americans are.