(Dzanc Books, 154 pages, $15.95)
Review:
Dreams of Molly is a sequel to Mr. Baumbach’s third novel, Reruns, which was originally published in 1974, but was reissued in 2005. This is truly a love story.
The story begins with a blocked writer, Jacob, who embarks on a series of adventures in order to rescue his ex-wife, Molly. He is not sure, but she may or may not have been kidnapped. Along the way, he keeps meeting people who remind him of her. Skeptical of who these people are, he finds himself caught between two worlds: fiction and reality. Then Jacob begins to unravel the idea that he may be a hired killer, but his memory begins to fail him and that's when the story really begins.
The book begins on the 35th night and ends on the 101st night. This format is similar to a diary, with chapters named by the night the dreams take place. I was personally drawn in from the opening lines: It was not the same. It was all the same. I was in Italy sitting at my desk in a luxuriant Villa writing the story of my invented life. I was in bed in Brooklyn dreaming I was in Italy at the Villa Mondare, which was a made-up place in any event, writing the first sentence of a fictional memoir. As readers, we are immediately pulled into the scattered mind of the protagonist and his dilemma.
Overall, each episode is a complicated philosophical adventure into the conflicted mind of the most unlikely hero. Dreams of Molly is an example Baumbach's avant-garde fiction at its finest.
Excerpt:
"You can turn around when I tell you to," she said. "Deal?"
I nodded my agreement, used the time standing with my back to her trying to remember what she looked like that fateful day fifteen years ago when she announced it was over between us. No image offered itself.
"What happens, Molly, if I turn around?" I asked, eager to see her even with the unattractive plastic bonnet over her hair.
I meant to keep my part of the bargain, but the extended silence intensified my curiosity. I sensed her shadow moving stealthily in the direction of the bed.
I turned my head warily, barely an inch, then turned back quickly, catching a glimpse of red dress as evanescent as a flash bulb explosion.
Perhaps I'd seen nothing, but my expectations, minimal in the best of seasons, glowed with promise.
—from Dreams of Molly by Jonathan Baumbach
