All through the novel THE BETWEEN by TANANARIVE DUE I felt sympathy for Hilton and his family. Hilton is a husband and father of two children, Kaya and Jamil. Hilton suffers insomnia because of unexplained dreams and/or nightmares. Often these horrible dreams will have many doorways down a long hall, sometimes there is a drowning and sometimes his grandmother, Nana, appears in the dreams. When Hilton awakens from the dreams, he is not himself. He is sad, aloof and at times angry and definitely to exhausted to think clearly at work. Thankfully, he goes to see a therapist, Raul. Later, he will go to see Raul's brother for more help. The dreams are so painful he decides to let Raul hypnotize him.I've never thought much about the why of dreams. I know there are people who write their dreams down in journals. Other people believe wholeheartedly that their dreams are meaningful if they can unmix the symbolism. I did empathize with Hilton. I remember before my marriage and while still a child being frightened to death by nightmares. My parents settled for a night light in my bedroom and a lamp in the hallway. Still, I would run to my parents bed and jump in with them. I had no siblings at home who could have comforted me. Finally, my mother helped me to memorize The Twenty-Third Psalm. She said the Psalm would chase the nightmares away. Hilton end up getting a big dog, Charlie. It seems each person has their personal way of escaping the horror at night.I agreed totally with Hilton's bravery to seek counseling. However, he makes a dandy of a mistake which I could not condone. It just made me angry with him. I felt he played upon his psychological pain as a reason to do what he wanted to do just for a thrilling moment. In other words, I felt he used his depression about his dreams to excuse a bad action.The novel, THE BETWEEN, by TANANARRIVE DUE move from real time to Hilton's dream world. It's not a complicated move because the dreams are written in italics while Hilton's immediate and real environment is written in normal type. I liked the swing back and forth from the unreal to the real. I came to realize no matter what we believe about dreams they are an important part of our lives. I am left with questions about dreams. For example, why are we given dreams? Why do some people have more dreams than other people? Why is there so much symbolism in dreams? Isn't it asking a bit much for the average layman to unravel the meaning of these nightmares? In the end TANANARIVE DUE explains the why of Hilton's dreams. Wow! I never would have expected the reason for his sleepless nights. tananarivedue
“Hilton was seven when his grandmother died, and it was a bad time. But it was worse when she died again.” From that very lovely opening, Tananarive Due crafts a pulse-thrumming tale of a man haunted by a “sinister fear” (45). The rhythmic quality of the writing draws Hilton’s consciousness from the page and his own increasingly confused sense of reality becomes the reader’s own. Italicized moments seep into the text between paragraphs, between “lucid” moments, into sentence ends. Some stretches exchange italics for the non-dreaming, non-subconscious spaces of non-stressed print. Are we experiencing mental illness or magical realism, or some semblance of both in that the human perceptions of reality holds a blurring, and moments of between, of dreaming…In the Prologue, Due describes a young Hilton’s slip beneath the surface of the ocean, a teasing current pulling at his ankles, but soon, the playful becomes gripping as it seizes him in earnest (6), and such is the experience of the novel. The story begins as a delightful tinge of uncertainty only to smoothly shift in a breathless turning pages. The Between begs for some deeper cultural reads…and for a mature audience who understand the complicated emotions and relationships, as well as a deeper understanding of what would cause a man to fracture and to fight.~L (omphaloskepsis)http://contemplatrix.wordpress.com/20...
What do You think about The Between (2005)?
I wanted to read a book by a female author to balance out the number of books I've read by men recently. Tananarive Due avoids chick lit and black stereotypes and writes speculative fiction superbly, this is not a genre novel. The Between is reminded me of Dexter, the TV show, because both take place in Miami and the characters' occupations, a judge and a social worker, are central to the story. This book captures the cultural diversity of Miami and the characters are wonderfully fleshed out. The plot jumps around from scene to scene, but is compelling, and most pieces of the puzzle tie into a neat conclusion, although I found the overall premise to be glazed over, but I can't get into that in this review otherwise it gives the plot away.The author and I are close in age, and I enjoyed all the cultural references--Sweet Valley High, the Young and the Restless, etc. Well-written and suspenseful, but lacked a bit of depth in its mysteries. This was the author's first book, and I plan to read more of her.
—Leslie
this is the third novel i've read by due. all of her tales are consistently excellent. i stand by my original assessment. her words are easily cataloged in the tradition of octavia butler minus the impending sense of dread; the heavy macabre elements are lighter than butler but the universe woven by her words are just as intense. i admit there were about 75 pages that i really dragged on in this story. but over all it was a slow to digest food for thought. so many doorways. between the world of the living and the world of the dead. there are those born to die and those born to live. references to west african spirituality and life in south florida sweetened the pot. i felt like the famished road and the parable had a baby. good deal!
—Titilayo
Realy spooky/creepy novel that does a good job of touching on some of the unique aspects of life in Miami without being swallowed by them. But the best part, was that although there were characters of all kinds of backgrounds, none of them ended up being the "magical healer" type that is too often seen in in other (predominantly white) horror novels. There were moments when I was actually thinking, "Oh, please don't make him go to a Santero or Haitian voodoun (sp) practitioner or something". And
—Mia
