Bigfoot Dreams

by Francine Prose

Book Overview

A novel about learning to live in a world stranger than any tabloid headlineThough she's written dispatches from across the globe--covering the Loch Ness monster, live dinosaurs, and the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080504860X
• ISBN13: 9780805048605
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Owl Publishing Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Redemption in the unexpected?

Francine Prose is a delight to read because she describes so insightfully and oftentimes humorously the rich texture and nuances of relationships that we meet in her characters. The main issue in Bigfoot Dreams surrounds how we deal with the unexpected. Today, the search for many of us is for a "sign" or for the "unexpected". But what do we do when we finally meet it? We act ungraciously (the Greens' when there is even the remotest hint they may be miraculously bringing comfort to others). We shut it out (Vera's employer cannot deal with it although the obvious irony is they spend their lives encouraging people to meet the unexpected). We go back to the comfort of our drugs or the lives we have created (Louise) We are cynical or run from it as even Vera does when she might have encountered Big Foot. But where is redemption in all this? Redemption comes for Vera when she finally embraces the unexpected and sees life as an adventure in which we can really be touched in ways that may even be right here in the present in the everyday tapestry of our relationships.

Cryptobiology, anyone?

"Bigfoot Dreams" is a distinctly American book about hope and grace and popular culture. Although it includes a smattering of outdated references to fantasy games and smoking aboard aircraft, it has aged very well since its initial publication in 1986. Vera, Rosie, Solomon, and the other characters here seem as real as your neighbors. Bigfoot emerges as both the quintessential tabloid story and the catalyst for musings on what motivates people. Among other things, this book tells why we read tabloids so avidly in supermarket lines. Its central conceit, that fiction writers sometimes have a firmer grasp on reality than they intend, pays inventive homage to the aphorism that truth is stranger than fiction. Along the way, we're treated to observations about motherhood, friendship, first dates, and life (especially in New York and Seattle). We also learn about cryptobiology. I'll remember this book as a gentle but exhilarating read, very different from but no less deserving than "Bonfire of the Vanities," Tom Wolfe's portrait of New York in the eighties.

A winner

Vera Perl is the ace reporter of the Brooklyn rag, This Weekly, a supermarket tabloid that specializes in making up absurd stories that would have made Kafka want to become a rapper. Elvis sightings are all right, but Vera's favorite stories involve Bigfoot, perhaps because her first headline news was: "I Married Bigfoot". Vera develops her stories from pictures taken by the tabloid's top photographer, Solomon. When Solomon photographs a couple of kids selling lemonade, Vera puts the proper spin on it. She gives them false names, a phony psychiatrist of a dad, and endows the drink with mystical healing powers. The tabloid is sued, and subsequently Vera is blamed and fired. The vivacious Vera does not stay depressed very long as she decides to follow her dream by heading west and searching for the genuine Bigfoot. BIGFOOT DREAM is a very humorous, often satirical novel that will be enjoyed by readers who want their prose to be concurrently jocular and thought-provoking. Vera is the obvious heir apparent (with a few missing generations) to Ralph Kramden, that fifties Brooklyn schemer and dreamer. Anyone who gives Francine Prose a chance will owlishly come away delighted with the revelation that they have discovered a very talented author. Harriet Klausner