Dreamers of the Day Mary Doria Russell

A Flavour of the Book: At the sound of that ringing phrase, Miss Bell informed me tartly that the taxes we Americans had protested were incurred when the Plymouth colonists started a war with the Wampanoag and wiped out the buffer tribes that had shielded them from the Iroquois Confederacy. “You needed troops and we taxed you to pay for them… Our American cousins… often ignorant, but never without opinions.”

The Authortrek View: Mary Doria Russell’s latest novel soon had me hooked. It helped that I’m very much interested in the 1918 flu pandemic, and Lawrence of Arabia, both of which feature here. I also have very fond memories of one of Mary Doria Russell’s previous novels, The Sparrow. Dreamers of the Day dramatises the 1921 Cairo Conference that did so much to shape the world of today, especially as it involved the creation of an artificial nation called ‘Iraq’… Agnes Shanklin is the American tourist who becomes embroiled in these events, due initially to Lawrence’s friendship with her now deceased sister. Also at the conference is a British politician called Winston… and his long-suffering bodyguard. Cairo is probably not the best place to bring your pet Daschund, but it’s through Rosie that Agnes meets charming Karl, who may or may not be a German agent…

Dreamers of the Day does require the suspension of a certain amount of disbelief, as it’s hard to believe that the protagonists would have been so open with such a relative stranger. However, Mary Doria Russell is an expert at carrying the reader along, and it helps that she’s relating such a fascinating story that is so resonant with today. Mary Doria Russell is not the first writer to have told the story of the Cairo Conference, but despite the narrator Agnes’ protestations, she does so quite philosophically. She adds a further touch of verisimilitude to the story by incorporating a photo taken on a trip to the pyramids by many of the dignitaries involved in the actual conference. Indeed, Mary Doria Russell’s research is fantastic – she reels off a seemingly never-ending ream of revelations that enthral, and I only found one of these to be patronising. Dreamers of the Day is very contrived in the ways and means that Mary Doria Russell get Agnes to tell her story, but the narration is so excellent, that the reader never minds this. Indeed, I very much enjoyed this great book, and read it very avidly. Mary Doria Russell is a superb storyteller.

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