Dreamland Court
Literary Fiction
by Dale Herd
Set in the blighted industrial landscape of the Los Angeles basin, Dreamland Court is an underground love story.
Just out of prison, Johnny Dalton returns home to find his wife Jackie, the mother of his two small children, passionately involved with one of his good friends.
Doing everything in his power to win her back, Johnny blunders his way through one criminal enterprise after another. When the cops pick him up for being the only adult present at a wild teenage party, he’s sent back to jail.
The strange thing is, as far as Jackie is concerned, Johnny’s maneuvers actually work.
Reminiscent of the pathos in Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, and the comedy of John Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, Dale Herd focuses his astute gaze on lives that are ordinarily invisible, while turning the conventional love story on its head.
REVIEW
5 out of 5
This definitely falls among some of the more unique books I’ve read, and I’ll remember it long after I’ve finished. The story feels like you’re catching snippets of conversation for the most part, each contributing to the overall story. The formatting is different from what I’ve encountered before, but somehow felt right for the story as a whole. Having read the paperback version, I’m unsure how that formatting would play out in e-book, and whether standard formatting would work quite as well. The characters are unique and interesting, and we get to know them piece by piece the deeper into the book we go. If you’re looking for a unique piece of literary fiction, then you’ll want to put this at the top of your TBR.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dale Herd has published four books of short stories. His writing has been shaped by the many experiences he has had working as an itinerant laborer on construction sites, wrecking yards, in fast food kitchens, gas stations, Salvation Army yards, slaughterhouses, train yards, and in social work. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife. They have three sons.