Sweet Dream Baby

by Sterling Watson

Sent to live in the humidity of rural Florida with his grandparents and his sixteen-year-old Aunt Delia for the summer, twelve-year-old Travis becomes absorbed in the closed ways of small-town life. Captivated by Delia, Travis watches her attempt to find a place for herself in the socially stunted, gossip-driven town. Delia's secrets go beyond what Travis can understand, but he believes that he alone can save her--a belief that not only forces him to grow up fast, but one that builds to a dangerous and disturbing climax. In trying to free Delia from her past, Travis leads her into a shocking present and a most uncertain future.

In a work at once honest, chilling and compulsively addictive, author Sterling Watson has created a time and place where rock 'n' roll hums from AM radios, steam rises from a secluded riverbed and violent summer storms threaten the peace of silent nights. Watson's characters are brought vividly to life through Travis's touching, powerful and intensely personal voice. A dark and evocative coming of age tale, Sweet Dream Baby begins steeped in innocence and ends in a dramatically different place.

"I can't remember a book that sneaked up and grabbed me the way Sweet Dream Baby did. It's a real shocker by a very good writer."
--Elmore Leonard

"Sterling Watson's Sweet Dream Baby is one of the finest novels I've read in years, an incandescent blend of gothic noir, Faulknerian dreamscape and bittersweet coming-of-age story. Months after reading it, it haunts me still."
-Dennis Lehane

"Sterling Watson's Sweet Dream Baby brings us the words and music, the tastes and smells of that special time-as well as its heartache and secret shame. I was utterly absorbed in these fierce pages."
-Fred Chappell, author of Look Back All the Green Valley

"Sweet Dream Baby is a beautiful book. Sterling Watson is surehanded and telling in a story that is as elegiac as it is gripping."
-Michael Connelly, author of Chasing the Dime

"Some delicious page-turning."-Kirkus Reviews

A Book Sense 76 Top 10 Selection

Named to Top Ten Crime Books of 2002, Toronto Globe and Mail

"Watson proves himself a first-rate storyteller."-Publishers Weekly

"A comprehensive work of art that is as thought-provoking as it is disturbing."-Orlando Sentinel

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

STERLING WATSON is the author of seven novels, including Deadly Sweet, Sweet Dream Baby, Fighting in the Shade, and Suitcase City. Watson’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Schooner, the Georgia Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Michigan Quarterly Review, and the Southern Review. He was director of the creative writing program at Eckerd College for twenty years and now teaches in the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College in Boston. Of his sixth novel, Suitcase City, Tom Franklin said, “If this taut literary crime novel doesn’t center Sterling Watson on the map, we should change maps.” Watson lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Committee is his latest novel.

Reviews

[Kerimelban · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just kept thinking this boy is messed up!! It involved incest ( not molestation) which was just plain weird to read. The ending was intense and so disturbing.

[Rusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hell of a book. I liked the first two books of Watson's I read, but I wasn't expecting anything like this. It's an incredibly dark coming--of-age this poor kid has. I thought the setting and period (late 50s or so) was done extremely well. Not overdone, as it is in some many other books. I recommend it highly.

[Jamie Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the 2nd time that I have read this. I didn’t anticipate liking it as much as I did the first time, but I was wrong. First I’m a sucker for coming of age stories. Second, I’m always interested in “southern gothic” type books. I was truly shocked how much I liked this book. Especially how dark it ended up getting towards the end. The story made me think and will probably be stuck in my mind for a while. This book is definately not for the "rainbow and butterfly" reader. The author did an absolute amazing job making me love the characters (no matter what they did).

[Kip · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been over a week since I finished, and I can't stop thinking about this book. I suspect it'll be a long while before I forget it.

Here's the setup: Travis Hollister, just turned 12, is sent to his father's backwater North Florida hometown to spend the summer of 1959 with grandparents he's met only once and long ago, while his mother recovers from a mental breakdown. There, he meets 16-year-old Delia, fun-loving and high-spirited. They need each other equally, and as they cruise around town to a soundtrack of bubblegum rock 'n' roll, they become best friends, confidantes, and eventually fall in love. One problem: Delia is Travis's aunt.

Wait! This is not a book about a preteen who has sex with his aunt, although that does happen. In order to make most readers not throw the book down and run screaming from the idea, Watson brings us along slowly, because he knows we have to fall in love with Delia too. And we do: if you were Travis--shy, lonely, an outsider--you'd have no other choice than to be dazzled by her. She's the archetypal teenage girl too smart and sassy for her own good and the smothering small-town she lives in, with all its petty gossip and staunch belief in doing things the way they've always been done. She's full of mischief and sweetness, but thunderstorms make her cry with secret sorrow that Travis, confused even by the flirtatious flight attendant on the trip down, can't begin to understand--yet.

As the daughter of the sheriff, Delia occupies a certain social standing, and is expected to have certain friends and date certain boys. But she appears torn between the son of the town's biggest tycoon, and a poor dropout gearhead who hides his brains behind a James Dean pose complete with leather jacket and street-rod. Both boys obsess over her, each coming close to stalking her. This is how she and Travis are observed skinny-dipping, and then things really get dark.

As Delia's own drama plays out, we watch Travis go from a gentle, sensitive kid cowering from his hillbilly-trash neighbors in Omaha, to a furious avenging angel determined to do whatever it takes to protect Delia from her two admirers who would use her affection for Travis (still mostly innocent) to blackmail her for sex. Travis's transformation is slow but stark, as he starts the summer seeming much younger than 12, and finishes it far older. The final showdown in Chapter 37 is harrowing enough, but Chapter 38, which functions as an epilogue, is perhaps even more shocking and dismaying.

This is one of those books where surprise isn't the point. You might be expecting what happens, and you might not. It's the getting there that is the heart of the story. I don't consider myself any more shrewd than the average book-bear, but I figured out Delia's dark secret well before it was revealed, and when Travis wakes up with a monster (wink, wink) after snuggling through a thunderstorm with Delia, I suspected the inevitable. But Watson ratchets up the dread almost too slowly to notice. Although it's not a long book, and mostly spans three months, it's not what you might call fast-paced, but even so, it holds you the whole way.

The '50's nuances are mostly pitch-perfect, if somewhat stereotypical. I always like when an author provides a soundtrack for the action, and Watson's playlist is mostly bang-on. My figuring (aided by the Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits) puts the book in 1959, which makes the inclusion of Ben E. King's immortal "Stand By Me" a bit incongruous, as the song was still two years in the future. But as Travis stands beside Delia's bed, wanting to comfort her but no longer sure how, no other song could be playing. Deal with it. Also, not sure if teenagers used the word "dork" in 1959.

As a side note, jump the whole story 30 years ahead, and I can hear echoes of Guns n' Roses--"Sweet Child o' Mine" going out over the dedication line from Delia to Travis, and the secon half of "Rocket Queen" coming back. Also, I think Travis and Delia have a little Queensryche in their future, namely "Breaking The Silence" and "I Don't Believe In Love."

[Ronn · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3 1/2 stars. Set in the late 50s in north central Florida, this is a Southern gothic coming of age story that has some lighthearted moments, but they are greatly overpowered by the dark ones. The story is quite engaging, but I doubt that I will want to read this again, and I'm hard pressed to say who I would recommend this to.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts out as a seemingly standard coming-of-age story of a 12-year-old boy named Travis spending a summer with his extended family in Florida while his mom recovers from a psychological breakdown in a hospital back in Nebraska. He quickly becomes deeply attached to his 17-year-old Aunt Delia. They do everything together that summer, and it seems so innocent and sweet. However, as the summer progresses, dark forces come to the surface and the story takes a very decidedly different turn.
I found this book to be completely riveting. The author was wonderfully skilled at evoking small town southern America in 1958, with its winners and losers, its turbulent undercurrents. Travis begins to evolve through the novel into a truly eerie character, and the book ended with me wondering just what in the world would happen later in his life. This book has been kicking around my bookshelf for years, unread, and I'm really glad I finally got to it. It's pretty memorable.

[Jenscozylife · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was easy for me to read this in a short time. You fall in love with travis and hope for the best for him all to the end!

[Christie (The Ludic Reader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an effort to do something about my toppling Mount Doom of backlist books, I am going to read one for every newer release I read. Not sure it will help, but maybe I will luck out and the majority of books languishing on my shelves will be as good as Sweet Dream Baby by Sterling Watson.

In this book, 12-year-old Travis Hollister is sent to Widow Rock, Florida to live with his paternal grandparents and 16-year-old aunt, Delia. It is 1958 and Travis’s father can’t cope. Travis’s mother is convalescing because, as Travis explains, “One day, I came home from school and found Mom curled up under the kitchen sink.” This will be the break everyone needs.

Travis’s grandparents are two sides of a coin: his grandmother is an effusive women, given to retreating to her room with headaches; his grandfather, the town sheriff, is a hard man who demands respect. The real surprise for Travis is his father’s much younger sister, Delia, whose smile “is like a sunrise over the wheat fields back in Omaha.”

Delia takes Travis everywhere and Travis is soon privy to things he doesn’t really understand. Ultimately, it makes this novel more than just the story of one boy’s coming of age. I blame Delia. Delia’s super power is her ability to wrap people, particularly men, around her little finger.

When Travis first meets Delia, he can see the effect she has on her father after she speeds into the garage, music blaring.

Grandpa Hollister’s eyes change. They look like I never expected them to. They say he doesn’t care about the loud radio or the reckless driving. Nobody’s gonna get arrested. They say he can’t do nothing about how he feels right now. Nothing at all.

It seems that every male who comes into Delia’s orbit, from Princeton-bound Bick Sifford, to the the local James Dean wannabe Kenny Griner, wants something from Delia. And soon, Travis wants something from her, too.

Sweet Dream Baby captures the innocence of youth, and the sharp tang of sexual longing and sets it all to the soundtrack of the music of the period. The book doesn’t go where you expect it to and ends up being quite a bit darker, too.

I loved every second of it.

[andrew y · Rating 2 out of 5]

9/50
In 2023 I am going to dust off and read fifty books from my to-read list.

The nicest thing I can say about this book is I finished it.
I have no idea what made me decide I wanted to read it, I suspect the bizarre blurbs (Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly and Elmore Leonard?!) played a part.
There is no shocking twist unless you haven’t been reading for very long. If you don’t see it all coming from basically the moment he gets to Florida then maybe this would be more enjoyable.
But my core complaint is this author creates a moderately believable female character who I sort of enjoyed even as she worked through some cliches - but then without warning she is transformed into a sex doll for no reason anywhere near good. Since the book is narrated by a pubescent boy, maybe the excuse is he becomes more sexually obsessed as time goes on and perceives those facets of her more and more… but. I didn’t like this. And that excuse is too lazy to accept.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not going to recommend this book to everyone across the board. It was a well-written coming of age story, but it had incestuous overtones almost from the start. It held my interest because I'm a sucker for excellent character development, yet as I read I kept thinking, "Oh please don't take me where I think you're taking me." Yep. The author took me there. Is it just me? That creeps me out to the point where I don't even want to lend the book to anyone.

Endings can often be awkward/annoying, but this author knows how to end a book! I gave Sweet Dream Baby four stars due to great storytelling, characters that make you care about what happens to them, a hot Florida summer setting (anything Southern always snags me), and the masterful ending. I'd have liked to give it 5 stars, but a minus one for creeping me out.

[huge pear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people were hating on the slow start but I actually really enjoyed the buildup in this book. I was invested in the lives of the characters and I felt sick at times reading what they were up to. I don’t think the last portion of the book after the plot climax is needed to be honest- I would rather have been left wondering how things played out for him.

[John Vanek · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of all times. Reread it this summer. Well worth buying.

[Kaeli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it in one day....

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zowie what a great story

You can feel the doom coming from the very first page, and nothing you can do to stop it. A great read

[Donna Farrug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book kept you interested but I didn't like the ending...

[Carlos b-word · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very disturbing in a way. Didn’t expect some things, very well written and a good read not talked about as much as it should be.

[Stephen Harnish · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Sterling Watson’s Sweet Dream Baby Delia tells her nephew Travis that, “When you tell someone a secret, you earn a promise from them. Secrets are worth something.” Well, this book is too hauntingly good, too well written, to be kept a secret. Elmore Leonard is quoted, saying, “I can’t remember a story that sneaked up and grabbed me the way (this book) did.” And all I can reply is, “Amen.”

Part coming-of-age story, part trouble in a small town, all of it compelling. Travis, a 12-year-old boy from Nebraska, spends the summer in Florida with his 17-year-old, firecracker of an aunt, Delia. He’s there because back at home his mother is in the throes of a nervous breakdown and his father, left alone with Travis, is struggling.

Sterling Watson is a fearless writer and one heck of a storyteller. The backdrop is 1950’s rock-n-roll, french-fries and cokes. It’s teenage boys and girls, sex and mischief, and falling in love with the wrong people. It’s all this and a whole lot more. The story smolders and the tension builds. The dangerous thing you begin to feel while reading lingers in the shadows just off the page. Like driving the backroads at night in an old white Chevy roadster, you’re never quite sure where the next bend in the road is. My recommendation. Buy his book, settle in, and enjoy one heck of a ride.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books, a story that has stayed with me since I read it five years ago; there’s something about Travis that grabbed my heart. It’s the 1950’s and twelve-year-old Travis is having a tough childhood: his beloved Japanese mother is in a mental institution, leaving him in the care of his emotionally unavailable Marine father, and he is constantly tormented by a redneck teenage neighbor. His life changes dramatically when he leaves Omaha to spend the summer with his father's family in Widow Rock, Florida. Travis's grandfather is the town's stern sheriff, his grandmother is often bedridden with headaches or heat exhaustion and his saucy Aunt Delia ("the subject of eighty percent of all Widow Rock Gossip Reports") is a 16-year-old spitfire. Travis is smitten by her verve from the moment she screeches to a halt in her '55 Chevy, and aunt and nephew bond quickly. Delia trusts her secrets with Travis, and he gains a masculine sense of protectiveness as he learns about the power of sex, lust and violence. Besotted with Delia, Travis loses emotional control and commits an outrageous act. The suspense builds to an explosive ending, and Travis's coming of age is brutal, touching and memorable.

[Julie Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can never read a book more than once.Sweet Dream Baby was different. I've read it twice already and although I already knew how it was going to end, I expected a whole new different ending! To this very day It still haunts me. It really felt like it was haunting me while reading it. If there was A thunderstorm in the book there was a real thunderstorm just outside my window. When Travis and Delia were swimming and racing each other. I learned How to swim that same day and had a race with my aunt. I absolutely loved it. I have a huge obsession with Greasers and Soc s and the years 1950's-1960's. When i realized that this book was taking place in those years I yelled( I fell in love with Kenny Griner. How crazy is that?) I would do almost anything to go back to those years! :) They have Truly become a part of me. This book sure catches you by surprise and everyone of the characters moves is unexpected. It shows how drastic a change in a persons life can be. When You first start reading You imagine Travis as probably a ten year old kid, though he really is twelve, and by the end of the book You imagine this really tough-looking, 16 year old, teenager. Definitely reading this book again. ;)

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought about giving this book 2 stars because I really did not care for the ending, but it is too well written for that so I settled on three. Before even starting on Page 1, I read the excerpt of the novel that is inside the front cover. From it, I suspected that there might be some incestuous undertones to the story. For me, the author took it too far. I wouldn't say that the presence of incest in a book is enough to make me not like it (like every other woman my age, I read and enjoyed the "Flowers in th Attic" series as a young girl) but what happens in this book is extremely troubling and uncomfortable to read.

As I was reading the book I kept waiting for some major event to happen. But chapter after chapter, not much did. Then, all of a sudden, in the final few chapters of the book, way too much happens. The end has quite an unexpected twist and it is very unsettling. If you are looking for a nice coming of age story set in the 1950s, this book is not for you. There are no warm fuzzy feelings at the end of this one!

[Alison McLennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book about two years ago mainly because Sterling is a Prof in my MFA program. I still remember the plot and characters. In my advanced years, I've started to judge books by their degree of resonance. One of thing I look for in a novel is moral ambiguity. I'm not into the good vs. evil thing. I want complexity.Simple questions I ask myself about books I've read: Do they leave a lasting impression years after you've read them? Do you even remember what they are about? Are they thought provoking? In regards to Sweet Dream Baby, yes to all of these questions. A great book by a great writer and teacher.

[Darby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vivid, frightening coming-of-age tale that has Watson wringing out something new of a topic you would have long ago thought had become trite and commonplace. The characters are well drawn out and the final third of the book seems almost preordained in its coming heartbreak. Yet, as the conclusion rushes to its haunting, brutal end, Watson still manages to thrown in a few surprises.

A great book, flawlessly written. It remains one of my all-time favorites and it's an immense pleasure to reread it every few years to bask in it's glory and to see just what power the written language can hold in the hands of an enormously talented author of Watson's stature.

[Truff · Rating 2 out of 5]

*Spoiler Alert*
I have to give this book 2 stars, because while I liked the first 3/4 of the book, the end - probably a little less than the last 1/4 was disturbing in it's left turn.

The main character Travis starts out being a very innocent, sweet boy sent to live with previously unknown relatives including a very young aunt (almost his age) that he proceeds to have a sexual relationship with. It was rather unbelievable, including the ability of two young people to cover up not just one heinous "crime" but two.

[Senora · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was a comfortable read. I was interested in the characters and the plot. I was a bit disappointed that I predicted what the secrets would be. The reviews said the end of the book was a shocker, so I thought I was guessing wrong. It was interesting, however, how the beginning was tied to the ending of the book. I would have liked to know more about how Travis's relationship with his parents ended up at the end of the story.

[Lacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. The foreshadowing in this book definitely leads to what you think it does. I'm not really surprised by what happens to Travis, but I am surprised by the consequence of his actions. I'm left wondering what will happen to Delia and totally shocked by Grandpa Hollister. The descriptions are excellent, I could imagine the scene and characters perfectly in my head. Not a book that I will ever reread but again, interesting.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts off as a fairly heartwarming story about a 12-year-old boy going to stay with his grandparents and teenaged aunt, on whom he develops a crush, in Florida while his mother recovers (or doesn't) from a breakdown. Then it takes a turn towards the dark. Unchallenging but good read that will take you through a quiet weekend.

[Gato Negro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the book in 4 hours...couldn't put it down. This book had the perfect combination of "southern folk", a particular time (1950s), and a mixture of some scandalous (sexual) and horrific (murderous) moments which kept things interesting. A real page turner which kept me saying, "no way"...and then just what you think couldn't possibly happen, happens.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Sweet Dream Baby, everything was extremely unexpected. It had two main characters Delia and Travis. They were very good friends and they did everything together. You will have to read it to know what the outcome is. i reccomend this book for everyone and anyone!

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This seems to be a heartwarming little novel about a 12-year-old boy sent off to Florida to spend the summer with his grandparents and aunt.
Watson does a good job of luring you into that mindset. And then things quite unanticipated happen.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know when you are watching a scary movie and you implore the character who is about to be bludgeoned to death to not go see what the noise was? There is a less deadly equivalent in this book. Truly maddening.