The Dream

On a narrow cobbled street in a northern mill town young Harry Bernstein and his family face a daily struggle to make ends meet. This is the true story of those harsh years, overshadowed by the First World War.Amidst the hardship and suffering, Harry's devoted mother clings to a dream - that one day they might escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America. But the regular pleas to relatives in Chicago yield nothing, until one day, when Harry is twelve years old, the family looks on astonished as he opens a letter which contains the longed-for steamship tickets.But the better life of which they'd dreamed proves elusive. Deprivation follows them to Chicago - and for Harry, life becomes more difficult still as he finds himself torn between his responsibilities to his mother, and his first love...

Préface
The follow-up to the critically acclaimed THE INVISIBLE WALL, THE DREAM is the fascinating, true story of the Bernstein family as they cross the Atlantic in search of a better life.

Auteur

97-year-old Harry Bernstein emigrated to the USA with his family after the First World War. He started writing THE INVISIBLE WALL after the death of his wife of 67 years, Ruby. THE DREAM is his second book. He lives in Brick, New Jersey.

Texte du rabat

The dream of escape to America carried Harry's mother through the harsh years of poverty in a bleak, industrial mill town in the north of England as the First World War raged.

In America, she believed, they would at last be free of the daily struggle to make ends meet, the drunken brutality of her husband, and the religious bigotry which divided their narrow cobbled street.

This is the extraordinary true story of the Bernstein family's struggle to settle in Chicago and the devastating impact of the Depression; but it's also a very personal and powerfully moving account of young Harry's first love, of triumph over adversity and never giving up hope...

Praise for The Invisible Wall:

'A heart-wrenching memoir ... brilliantly illuminates a family struggling valiantly to beat impossible odds' New York Times

'An exceptional book' Guardian

'A compelling narrative of childhood survival ... the tale has a freshness, a vitality and a relentless energy ... extraordinarily powerful. A triumph of the human spirit over multi-faceted adversity' Daily Mail

'Extraordinary ... spare, uncomplicated, and terribly vivid for it' Independent

'A remarkable memoir ... vivid, compassionate and notably unsentimental' Times Literary Supplement