Product Description

Haunted by the nightmares of Annie, a young woman he has just met, historical researcher Jeff Johnston leads Annie on an emotional odyssey through the heartland of the Civil War in search of a cure for her troubles. Reissue. NYT.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #380378 in Books
• Published on: 1992-06-01
• Released on: 1992-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780553270259
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
As a researcher for a popular historical novelist, Jeff Johnston finds himself immersed in the minutiae of the Civil War, tracking down the name of a general's favorite horse or the spot where Lincoln's son was buried. His meeting with Annie, the patient of old friend Dr. Richard Madison, changes his perspective. While the novelist contemplates a book on Lincoln's prophetic dreams and consults sleep specialist Madison, Jeff discovers that Annie is having vivid, horrible dreams of the Civil War containing details she couldn't possibly know. The point of view is unmistakably that of defeated Confederate leader Robert E. Lee. Jeff tries to shield Annie from the opportunistic reach of both novelist and doctor, but he can't protect her from herself, for she feels duty bound to refight the war if it will finally allow Lee some measure of peace. This charming, unpredictable book, with its unforced subtext of more recent wars and their veterans' lingering bad dreams, is an impressive first novel from a talented writer whose short stories have already won acclaim.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Connie Willis has won six Nebula and Six Hugo Awards (more than any other science fiction writer) and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for her first novel, Lincoln's Dreams.  Her novel Doomsday Book won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, and her first short-story collection, Fire Watch, was a New York Times Notable Book.  Her other works include Bellwether, Impossible Things, Remake, and Uncharted Territory.  Ms.  Willis lives in Greeley, Colorado, with her family.

Customer Reviews

A Magnificent Achievement
It's hard to figure on how to write a review for this book without giving anything away. Suffice it to say, for the short hook, that this is a book that no reader should go without. Connie Willis takes a hard theme and makes it relatable, understandable, and devastatingly personal for any reader who's willing to accept the book to start with.

I'm honestly amazed by some of the negative reviews that the novel gets. I can understand them, to a point--if you've read Connie Willis before, you may be somewhat distressed by the almost unbroken seriousness of tone and story in Lincoln's Dreams. This is not funny or amusing in the way that her better accepted stories are (Doomsday Book, for example, manages to maintain a sense of humor throughout the middle of its several hundred pages). Before you pick up this book, you need to understand that Connie doesn't go out of her way to make the story she's telling easy for you.

Nor should she, if you ask me. I'm willing to go along with everything that Willis lays before me in this story, including the sometimes difficult to understand characters. You need to know, though, that they are difficult to understand not because they are flat, but because they are decidedly human (and real people can sometimes be some of the most two dimensional you will ever meet, and I'm including literary figures in that analysis). There are a couple of points in the story where you have to grant Willis some liberties, but for the most part the characters are internally consistent and understandable.

The biggest obstacle that this story has is probably its theme--the destructive power of love. However, I was amazed to find when I took some time to sit back and think about the book that the author had managed not only to relate this fundamental theme to me, but that she had done so without the vitriolic hatred of the emotion that many who would try to address it seem to fall into. Indeed--the story shows the terrible destruction that love in all its forms can bring upon a person while still maintaining its desirability and its essential goodness. At the end of the story, you feel the loneliness that the lack of love brings, and I believe that this loneliness is the ultimate expression of the theme that Willis is trying to examine.

And the fact that she was able to evoke this in me and show these things to me is what ultimately marks this novel as a triumph for me. I'm not normally one to be emotionally affected by a story, but Connie Willis has always managed to pull my strings, and nowhere more than in this story. This is not a happy story (though it is not without wit, as some would have you believe) but it is an important one, and a lesson that any person can draw. In short, it is a transcendant work that may very well be looked back on as one of the best novels of the last half of the century, and I don't throw that praise around lightly. At the very least, you should at least give the book a try.

A beautifully crafted story
Science fiction fans should be familiar with Connie Willis, whose plague-era Doomsday Book achieved best-seller status a couple years ago. They should not overlook this remarkable short novel, in which a Civil War researcher encounters a young woman whose dreams mirror, day by day, events in the life of Robert E. Lee. A suspenseful road trip through Civil War battlegrounds ensues as the researcher attempts to find the cause of the dreams and disconnect the woman's life from Lee's before Lee expires, or the woman endures Lee's most heartbreaking battlefield losses.

Willis writes a compelling and convincing story here, and--as in the best of her short fiction--all the events lead up to one powerful wallop that leaves you with an unexpected feeling of inevitable completion and emotional release. If the last line doesn't bring a tear to your eye, see a cardiologist--you obviously don't have a heart.

A haunting book
Lincoln's Dreams was the first book I read by Connie Willis, and the best by far. It is the story of a young Civil War historian who is pulled into the dream world of a disturbed young woman. The tragic story of the Civil War is deftly entertwined with the tragic story of that young woman

Ms. Willis did an outstanding job of researching the Civil War. Her story is rich in texture and detail. But the most extraordinary thing about this book is the incredible tension she builds with the progression of the story. This quiet little story generated the kind of menacing anxiety usually reserved for spy thrillers!

I have read everything Connie Willis has written, and greatly enjoyed most of it, but Lincoln's Dreams remains my favorite of her books