Trading Dreams at Midnight: A Novel

by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Book Overview

From the author of Blues Dancing and Tumbling--a writer who "ought to be classified among the best of all contemporary fiction writers period" (Detroit Free Press)--comes a riveting novel about the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688163866
• ISBN13: 9780688163860
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.1" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

This Time I Am Disappointed

I simply love Diane Mc-Kinney Whetstone as a writer and she is an excellent writer and storyteller but this one fell through the cracks for me. This book was like driving a car-- first you start the engine but it does not soar as it slowly creeps around the block. I hate that the outline of the story cause you to go forward, stay still and go back and forward. I simply like a novel to stay in chronological order. While the subject matter was sad to read about in essence there was mental illness in so many of the characters. Neena, Nan, Tish and Freeda was one dysfunctional family starting with the grandmother Nan who uses a potion to put in her soon to be husband Alfred drink to win his affection to the mysterious mental illness of her daughter, Freeda who slips in and out of their lives like a ghost. The odd behavior of Neena who is promiscious because she is searching for a father figure and does outrageous things to crave attention. When you get into the mind of Neena, you find that she is also exhibiting some mental issues and never finds any happiness until she meets Bow Peep and Clyde. I never could understand the strange behavior of Tish. Of course in the end, it somewhat gells which makes me believe that every last one of the main characters were not stabled and would explain why Nan discovers that Neena behavior is a cry for help like hers is for a love long gone from Alfred. The reason I hated the jerky ride was because as soon as you got adjusted to the story, it went back and forward but the ending justified why she wrote the story in this sequence because it mirrored the characters of the story. I would just like to say that this is not the author's best work. If you love this novel, you cannot argue that "Tumbling" is her best novel yet.

Moved to tears

This was an amazing story of a 3 generations of women bound by pain and love for one another. The Grandmother who raised her 2 granddaughters when their mother suddenly disappeared. Skip ahead twenty years, and now the oldest of the two girls has been living a life she is not proud of, returns home to see her sister who is hospitalized, and has to face the grandmother she knows will disapprove of her current lifestyle. This story was so moving that I had to keep a box of kleenex nearby!

Where is Freeda and Why did she leave her kids??

I won't lie. I had a small interest in reading this book, but once I got it, I was drawn into the lives of Nan, Freeda, Neena and Tish. Told from the lives and views of the women, but more notably Nan, Neena and Tish. They slowly start you on a journey situated in the author's hometown on Philadelphia, where Tish is in the hospital fighting to keep her baby. Neena, who for the past twenty years has been looking for her mother, and financiing it with married men's money and eventual blackmail. When the last sting goes away from the way she plans, she leaves Chicago for Detroit originally, but after looking at the station master's eyes, which reminded her of one of the local businessmen who took a paternal interest in Neena growing up, she changes for Philadelphia. Once there, she tries to get with Tish, but gets with Nan instead, and gets stonewalled. So, she hits the streets and meets an interesting set of characters, Bow Peep, a street musician with a knack for healing and helping folks; Cliff, a lawyer who Neena targets for her next sting. Told in flashbacks and in present day, Trading Dreams speaks of secrets, sibling rivalry, and how one can always come home no matter what. My sole beef with the book is Nan,first by not getting the help that Freeda needed instead of worrying on the stigma of mental illness, and how she let Neena keep looking for her mother, when the truth would have been more sufficient. As always, Ms McKinney Whetstone will not fail to disappoint with this book, and you cannot leave it wondering What happened to Freeda and why did she leave her kids? Interesting novel. you won't be disappointed.

insightful story of three generations of women bonded by their shared pain

"Trading Dreams at Midnight" is told from three points of view: grandmother Nan and her two granddaughters, Tish and Neena. The voice we never hear, but who is in many ways the central character of the book, is Freeda, Nan's daughter and Tish's and Neena's mother. Freeda's untreated mental illness shapes all of their lives. Freeda would often disappear. In one early disappearance, she returns a year later with the baby Neena and no explanation for where she was or how she came to have a child. In her disappearances, she leaves her children with Nan for unexplained hours, days, or weeks. Nan accepts this burden, just as she accepts untold other burdens. Tish, the younger sister, loves Nan like a mother, but Neena has too many happy memories of Freeda to let Nan take that place in her heart. Nan and Neena share an unmentionable guilt about Freeda, each convinced that if only they had been good enough, Freeda would have stayed. Freeda finally disappears for good when Neena is sixteen. Neena spends the next twenty years trying to track her down, following the smallest snippets of information in the hopes of reuniting with her. To fund her travels, she seduces wealthy married men, then shakes them down for money when it is time for her to move on to the next city where her mother might be. Her most recent conquest, though, doesn't fall for it, and Neena finds herself on a bus back to her native Philadelphia for reasons that she can't articulate. In Philadelphia, where Tish is hospitalised in an attempt to allow her to carry her first child to term, redemption and healing are finally found for all three women. Told in interwoven flashback sequences from all three perspectives, the book shows us how three different people can experience the same thing and have three completely different perspectives. The prose is lush and dense, occasionally too lush and dense for its own good. The story moves along mostly effortlessly, and the desires and demons of each woman come to the fore and are dealt with in a manner that is surprisingly deft and gentle.

(4.5 Stars) Another Near Classic for Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Neena is a 36-year-old woman who has been searching for her mother that abandoned her and her sister Tish twenty years ago. Neena leaves her childhood Philadelphia home and makes a living by blackmailing wealthy, married men. But when this last job goes bad, Neena is forced to come back to Philly to face her family and the demons of her past. Neena and Tish's grandmother Nan is a stable church lady and seamstress. She is loyal to her granddaughter Tish who is about to be a mother herself. During this time, Nan starts to question her own past decisions. Nan is also struggling with the way she dealt with her daughter Freeda's mental illness and her disappearance. Trading Dreams At Midnight is a riveting novel by Diane McKinney-Whetstone. The author expertly weaves a tale of three women who must resolve some issues in their past in order to move to the future. You feel the emotional pain of all of these characters. You sympathize with Neena as she searches for her mom to fill the void in her life. You also feel for Tish as she goes through a difficult pregnancy and will understand the guilt and inner turmoil of Nan. This author paints such a vivid picture of this story that the reader will feel as if they can see everything that is taking place. Trading Dreams At Midnight is awe-inspiring and insightful. Diane McKinney-Whetstone once again displayed her superior storytelling skills that make Trading Dreams At Midnight definitely worth the wait. Reviewed by Radiah Hubbert of Urban Reviews

Mothers and Daughters: A Family of Women

For more than twenty years, Neena has been searching for her absent, mentally ill mother, Freeda. Freeda's last appearance is the night of her sixteenth birthday when she climbed into the window of her daughters' bedroom where they live with her mother, Nan. Nan is a stern but loving grandmother to Tish and Neena. Over the years, she takes them in when Freeda's wandering mind takes her on a journey, abandoning her young daughters to fend for selves. Yet, whenever she returns, Neena is happy and can't get past her yearnings for her mother's love that she knew as a little girl. Tish longs for stability, often frightened, afraid and prefers the security of her grandmother's care. Nan knows this and it causes a huge divide between the two of them. She never seems to be able to love Neena, the rebellious grandchild, the way that she loves Tish, the agreeable one. Neena feels she can never do right in her grandmother's eyes. She is Freeda's girl and Nan, who never forgave herself for not being able to save Freeda from her demons, sees all that she has lost in Freeda, in Neena. In her recently released novel, Trading Dreams At Midnight, acclaimed author Diane McKinney-Whetstone brings us a hauntingly beautiful story of mothers and daughters, love and pain. The author threads issues of mental illness, alcoholism, broken marriages, prejudice, racism, and neighborhood gentrification throughout her novel. Although at times soft, it is still a hard-hitting, bittersweet novel about a family of black women who stand tough as times get tougher. Nan also has demons to live with. As a young, lonely, single woman, Nan is so taken by the handsome, sweet talking Albert that she resorts to less than honorable ways to trap him. A working alcoholic in bad health, Alfred is more than a handful but Nan loves him enough to stand by him. After Freeda's birth, Alfred is in and out of sobriety over the years yet they manage to stay together as a family. Freeda is a Daddy's girl and the apple of his eye. Nan thought that all of her dreams had come true. As Freeda gets older, however, Nan sees that her sweet child is less than perfect. For years, Nan refuses to face the realities of her daughter's dark side. Then as a rude awakening, Nan believes that her sins are re-visited in her child. When the marriage falls apart, so does Freeda. It becomes clear that she has mental problems but Nan's help comes too late. When Freeda gives birth to Neena and Tish, Nan sets out to save the girls, hoping that her grandchildren will elude the fate that befell their mother. Unlike Tish, Neena cannot stop longing for her mother. She drops out of college and leaves Philadelphia for Cleveland, the last place that Freeda had been spotted. Neena finds herself forced to run scams against her married lovers in order to support her search and to live the good life. Finding herself in danger after one of her scams goes bad, she returns to Philadelphia with only the clothes on her back and plans t