From Issue 20, May 2002
Behold, This Dreamer
Charlotte Miller, NewSouth, 2000

This is the first in a trilogy that will take readers through the life of Janson Sanders. Through her artful storytelling, Charlotte Miller has captured the essence of two people's dreames. Janson loses everything that he loves and sets out on a journey that he hopes will bring him back his dream: to buy back his family's land. In the rural South during the 1920's, Janson's experiences are clouded by the fact that most others only wish to see that he is part Cherokee and part 'poor white'; they fail to look inside at the true man. To earn money to buy back the land he has lost, he eventually comes to work for William Whitely, a wealthy landowner in Georgia. Life appears to be working out for Janson until he falls in love with the landowner's daughter, Elise. Elise and Janson struggle to overcome their differences enough to learn that they share a kindred spirit--that of a dreamer.

It is here that Janson discovers that a man can have more than one dream. He and Elise learn through some hard lessons: that life doesn't always hold what we hope for us, in spite of our dreams.--Shannon Wally