| Behold, This Dreamer by Charlotte Miller is told from the omniscient viewpoint. So
every time the reader begins to sympathize with one character, the thoughts of another character are revealed. The
saga covers two generations of tenant farmers and landowners in Alabama and Georgia in the 1920's.
What a story! Fantastic! It is reminiscient of Gone With the Wind.
From poor beginnings, but from parents who dearly love him and each other, the "dreamer"
(Janson Sanders), begins life as a half breed. His father is a poor farmer and his mother is a native American.
When Janson's father dies of a heart attack, after a vicious and deliberately set burning of his cotton
field, Janson's mother dies of a broken heart. The boy is just a teenager when he must set off on his
own to make his way in the world.
Janson is so hungry that he intends to steal food from a plantation house. The black maid catches
him and eventually befriends him. He stays at the plantation to work and saves every dollar to try to
recapture his dream of returning to the land his parents once owned.
While at the plantation, he meets and falls in love with the only daughter of the powerful and cruel
owner. The two young people must court in secret. Of her three brothers, one is even more vicious than
his father.
Racial issues, discrimination, hate, jealousy, physical abuse, and cheating are swirling around the
loving relationships of the main characters from two generations. It is one of those sagas that will keep the reader reading and when the words of the story are
complete, the memories of the very real characters remain on the reader's mind. Their personalities are
so well developed that the characters become real.
The author is enormously talented! Miller weaves several subplots and personalities into the saga. Of
course, it is the growth and changes apparent in Janson Sanders that are so well detailed that the reader
dreams along with him. As he grows, Janson is subjected to brutal prejudice. But he never lets his
dreams die. This is one author whose name will be on the top of readers' lists for a long time! Bravo!
Maris Cato- Southern Scribe Reviews
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