The Big Dream

by Rebecca Rosenblum

At Dream Inc., a lifestyle magazine publisher, people are struggling not only to do their jobs—or even to keep them—but to fall in love and stay that way, to have friends, to be good parents and good children, to eat lunch and answer the phone and be happy. Which can be pretty interesting . . . even on company time. In The Big Dream , acclaimed short story writer Rebecca Rosenblum offers a suite of linked stories exploring the working world in all its dark and humorous complexity, creating an In Our Time for our time. Rebecca Rosenblum's debut collection Once drew comparison to Alice Munro's Dance of the Happy Shades " ( Quill & Quire ). She works in publishing in Toronto, Ontario.

Genres: Short Stories, Canada, Fiction, Contemporary

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Rebecca Rosenblum’s fiction has been short-listed for the Journey Prize, the National Magazine Award, the Amazon First Novel Award and the Trillium Award. Her collection, Once, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award and was one of Quill and Quire’s 15 Books That Mattered in 2008. her first novel So Much Love has been translated into French and Polish. Rebecca lives, works, and writes in Toronto.

Reviews

[Rebecca Rosenblum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um, I wrote it, so I like it. This is not an unbiased rating.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

An at times funny, but always melancholy, view of office life at a magazine company, The Big Dream provides Rebecca Rosenblum with the opportunity to explore trends, personalities, management structures, and the feckless employees who work for Dream Inc.'s multiple, and similar-sounding, niche publications. Those are often the pluses of this collection, which is also non-chronological and yet tells something of the story of the company. The negatives are: the lack of anyone with a spine makes the characters, despite their tics, almost interchangeable; the desire of people to work in this deadening environment is never explored, nor is there a world outside the dream (the nightmare, of course) of consumerism; and the missed opportunity to explore why people put themselves in such situations.

More 3.5 than 3.

For a full review, go here:

http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-...

[Marta]

Can't wait to get my hands on this!

[Sarahjoy Maddeaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well-written set of short stories. Overall, the tone is bleak, as the characters are affected (or not) by the decline of the company they work for, and the characters all have in common at least some emptiness, sadness, or conflict in their lives outside of work. I liked how some characters made repeat appearances in multiple stories, giving you different perspectives of them, but this does not happen very often. I liked the glimpse into Canadian culture - or at least southern Ontario culture. I liked how the vignettes were just that - momentary glimpses into the characters' lives, without beginning or ending, so you are left wondering what happens next in their lives. But most of all I liked the little details in the descriptions, seemingly unimportant (except to a literature professor analysing the text, no doubt), but doing more to reveal a character than any of their words. I would definitely read more by this author.

[Lisa Nikolits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another sheer delight by Rebecca Rosenblum. It was published in 2011 and I’m not sure how I missed reading it then. It’s so funny, so tragic and oh, so very, very, very real. The stories are cuttingly sharp, whiplash funny and yet, again, so very kind and compassionate. I revelled in the attention to detail; the food, the clothing, the office cubicles, the contents of each drawer, the terrible toothache of an exploding abscess. And the story titles! “Bursting into Tears Every Twenty Minutes.”, “Cheese-Eaters”, “This Weather I’m Under”. If you’ve read the book, read it again. And if you haven’t, then read it now.

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of those books that I just couldn’t put down. It felt like Rosenblum has captured a slice of my life in it. (And no doubt many of these experiences in this book must have come from real-life experience.) The book centres around the company Dream Inc. a somewhat tired and broken publishing firm. Rosenblum has exacted a series of stories around people who work in this company to show how the dynamic of this firm exists. And in doing so has reflected a true reality that many of us endure.

http://tinyurl.com/ljsazfw

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I m not the biggest fan of short stories, but this was okay.

[Deanna McFadden · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I finished Rebecca Rosenblum's latest book of short stories, The Big Dream, I had one thought in my head: she's, to put it simply, a natural writer. I've been reading a sh*t tonne of short stories lately, mainly for work, but also for pleasure (and my work is pleasurably so figure that dichotomy out!), because I can digest them in the 10 minutes I have before crashing at bedtime, and they're really great for commuting. So, The Big Dream. It's different from Rosenblum's first collection, Once, in that there was an element of whimsy to the stories, a few of them even touching into magic realism for lack of a better term, while staying true to their urban core. The same urban/suburban settings apply to this collection--many of the stories are centered around characters who work for or on a series of trade magazines that honestly reminded me of Rogers, even though I probably shouldn't say that out loud.

Rosenblum has an uncanny ability for writing intensely modern stories with fresh characters, but they're all leading lives that anyone might recognize. The core issues that all of our Toronto-centric humanity deals with--love, family, happiness, selfish/less/ness, the TTC, job insecurity etc.--run like undercurrents throughout. I don't want to point one story out to be my favourite, because I think the whole collection is so even and well-written that it wouldn't do the pieces justice. Taken as a whole, with its links between (emails from members of the Dream magazine company), the book pieces together modern life through the myriad different people who work for, around or in the organization, but in these ordinary lives are extraordinary occurrences, observations, the things that make people individuals. I love that.

There's a lightness and a freshness to Rosenblum's voice. Her metaphors are exacting, and her sentences direct, but the writing isn't sparse. It's rich and vibrant and keeps your attention. These stories are like good episodes of a some great television you'd see on HBO, they're definitely cable, not mainstream, if that makes any sense. Overall, I was consistently impressed--reading this book made me happy, full stop. And isn't that a wonderful thing for a book to do?

[Pooker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am just so annoyed with myself for gobbling up these stories in the span of a couple of days and now I've eaten them all! But I just couldn't help myself! They are wonderful stories and the book an excellent follow to the author's previous story collection: Once.

I read Once earlier this year and waffled, when attempting to give it a fair review, between giving it a four star rating or a five, ultimately saying that I would give it a 9 out of ten. I loved those stories too and went back to read my own review of them. Gosh, I even love my own review. Here's what I said about Once in August of this year (Yes, I am so conceited as to post it again here!)

I compared the characters in Once to peregrine falcons, hard-wired to fledge. I can continue that analogy with The Big Dream in so far as, once fledged, our characters are still madly flapping to keep themselves in the air.

The characters in The Big Dream stories are all connected by their work and all that comes with the territory: communal fridge, staff birthday or charity "events", health benefits or lack thereof. All work for Dream, Inc., a magazine publisher. Some of our characters are only just fledged and have just started working, assigned to a cubical in a wall of empty cubicles. Others have been there a while and have their own cubicle by a window. Moving up in the company means you might have a card board door to your cubicle or even a nameplate which means the cleaning staff recognizes your importance and will deign to vacuum your office if it looks like you expect that, even though the floors only get vacuumed once a quarter according to the schedule.
Despite their flapping though, these characters are not birds, they are delightfully and pathetically, agonizingly and stubbornly and laughingly human beings. And it was Rosenblum's ability to so perfectly capture the humanness of her characters despite their being trapped in the big anonymous cage of Dream Inc. that so charmed me. I loved these people! Felt for them, scolded them, laughed and wept with them.

Everything I would want in a book!

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of attending a local Hamilton literary event where Rebecca Rosenblum read from this collection of interconnected stories about characters who all work at the same magazine publishing company. She read “Cheese Eaters,” which was full of excellent sensory details that encapsulated the workday world of Photoshop, aquarium screen savers, and awkward office mate lunches. Even this familiar setting was freshly inviting by her realistically quirky dialogue and memorable characters.

At this event Rosenblum read half of "Cheese Eaters"-- stopping just as Rae, the jaded, dryly witty and newly divorced mother at the heart of the story receives a panicked phone call from her ex-husband. I knew that I would have to go out and buy myself a copy of the book, just to see what happens next. And I'm so glad a did. I devoured these funny, sharp, and often sad stories in a matter of days.

I now hear that Rosenblum has a new novel coming out, and I cannot wait to read it.

[Sweetmongoose · Rating 4 out of 5]

The practical device connecting these interconnected short stories is "Dream Inc", a corporation publishing a cluster of magazines with "Dream" in the title, and their office building in Mississauga, Ontario. The stories are focalized through characters who work in various departments, the spouse of one of the employees, and also a cafeteria staff member. Working for "Dream Inc" is anything but a dream come true though. I really liked the variety of voices--they come from different levels in the company, different countries, different genders & sexual orientations. They sometimes offer a different view of the same event (the lay-off of the customer service department, for example) or stay in the interiors of the characters' complicated social lives. The author takes on several pretty unlikable characters and takes us into their heads and motivations in a way that surprised me at times. Sometimes funny, sometimes moving, sometimes depressing, sometimes enlightening, these stories make a big picture with a complexity and a compassion that I appreciate in the fiction I read.

[Ann Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Big Dream describes the lives of a group of employees who work for a magazine publishing conglomerate that seems to have found applied its dream brand to every possible publishing niche. I have met some of the scary characters Rosenblum describes (or at least real-life variations of them), although, so far, I have managed to avoid the fact-checker who takes her research assignments a little too seriously.

The stand-out story in the collection is "How to Keep Your Day Job." It demands that you pay attention and it body checks you with its honesty:

"If, because relationships are stressful and his band has been fighting and the summer's been hot, your partner knocks you into the wall and it leaves a bruise, a cardigan will cover that too. You might be able to call the Employee Assistance Program to talk it over, but they probably report everything to management. Nobody likes a whiner."

[Holley Rubinsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rebecca Rosenblum brings richly characterized personal drama to Canlit urban-based writing. The stories in The Big Dream took me by surprise. I read one after another and hopscotched around until I'd read the whole book. The soon-to-be-outsourcing lifestyle-magazine world she describes --details of sandwiches and life within (and outside) the cubicle -- held me. It was fascinating. For me, a long-time rural Canadian, it was like reading about life on another planet. I liked her people; she's such a skillful, insightful writer I cared about them. The story "Loneliness" is impeccable and heartbreaking. What a wonderful writer. The book was published in 2004 ... now I need to read what Rosenblum has written since.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dialogue is crisp and lean and utterly believable. How does Rebecca do it? This is a world of office cubicles, dust bunnies, IT guys, old pizza boxes, parking lots, lost files, downsizing, and hospital rooms. Initially I felt distant from the lives of these (mostly) youngish employees struggling to survive in the superficial, hierarchical world of Dream Inc, an empire of magazines. I think this may have been the author's intention because, as I read on, I was drawn in and enjoyed each story in these connected tales more than the last. Finally, when I reached the end of the poignant This Weather I'm Under, I wept.

[VWrulesChick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Several inter-woven stories from the Dream company, see how the employees interact with each other and some internalize. While mice eat through phone cables, layoffs are ordered, office equipment is taken, customer service calls are taken, Christmas party thrown; all the while the people of the stories have their big dream.

[Kerry Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosenblum tops her extraordinary debut collection with this new book of short stories about employees of a publishing company that's fallen victime to these economic times.