Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell:
My dad passed this book on from his book group. I was hesitant because my dad’s taste runs towards heavy history and melancholia. This book was in fact an historical fiction but not too heavy and written in a lighthearted tone. It is set around a very obscure historical event but one that is very relevant to current events. The protaganist is a middle-aged school teacher from Ohio who finds herself in Cairo during the weeks of the Cairo Peace Conference in 1921. The players were Churchills, T.E. Lawerence (aka Lawerence of Arab ia) and Gertrude Bell. These characters were the creators of the borders of Iraq as we know them today. Honestly, I always thought Lawerence of Arabia was just a movie character ( don’t tell my dad the historian I said that!!) . So it was interesting to see a glimpse of these political figures. The story left me wanting to do some exploring and further study of this time and these players. Isn’t that just what an historical fiction should accomplish??
Without any spoiler, I must say the ending seemed odd to me. But overall I found the book captivating and entertaining and informative. How much more can you ask in a book?
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