Her Daughter's Dream

August 16, 2010
The concluding part of a multigenerational saga by Rivers (Her Mother's Hope) extends to the present day a family story that ultimately includes five generations of women. As the tale opens in the 1950s, Hildemara, a nurse, and her daughter, Carolyn, perpetuate a pattern of secret keeping, a communication failure that also characterized Hildie's relationship with her mother, the Swiss-born, ambitious Marta. The conflict and social experimentation of the 1960s draw Carolyn away from her family, and the cycle of family dysfunction repeats itself as Carolyn gives birth to and raises her own daughter, May Flower Dawn, who in her turn grows up and marries, hoping not to repeat the familial past. Rivers has written another page-turner, yet the sequel is not as successful as the earlier novel, which centered around the compelling character of Marta and took time to narrate events and make subordinate characters interesting. Nonetheless, this heartfelt and sweeping saga is as ambitious as its central matriarch and will sell well.