DREAM THINGS TRUE: A Novel
By
Marie Marquardt
St.
Martin’s Griffin
On
Sale: September 1, 2015
Hardcover:
978-1-250-07045-6 / $18.99
eBook:
978-1-466-88024-5 / $9.99
A modern-day
Romeo and Juliet story in which a wealthy Southern boy falls in love with an undocumented
Mexican girl and together they face perils in their hostile Georgia town. Evan, a soccer star and the nephew of a
conservative Southern Senator, has never wanted for much -- except a functional
family. Alma has lived in Georgia since she was two-years-old, excels in
school, and has a large, warm Mexican family. Never mind their differences, the
two fall in love, and they fall hard. But when ICE (Immigration and Customs
Enforcement) begins raids on their town, Alma knows that she needs to tell Evan
her secret. There's too much at stake. But how to tell her country-club
boyfriend that she's an undocumented immigrant? That her whole family and most
of her friends live in the country without permission. What follows is a
beautiful, nuanced, well-paced exploration of the complications of immigration,
young love, defying one's family, and facing a tangled bureaucracy that
threatens to completely upend two young lives.
Marie
Marquardt is a Scholar-in-Residence at Emory University's Candler School of
Theology and the author of Living Illegal: The Human Face of Unauthorized
Immigration. She is widely published on issues of Mexican immigrants in the
U.S. South. Marquardt has also worked as an advocate among immigrants in
Atlanta. She is a founder and co-chair
of El Refugio, a hospitality house near the Stewart Detention Center in
Georgia. Dream Things True is Marie's
first young adult novel.
“In this YA debut,
immigration activist Marquardt knowledgably takes on the plight of undocumented
families in the U.S. Readers seeking a star-crossed love story with a twist
won’t be disappointed.” —Publishers Weekly
“Various aspects of undocumented
immigration are explored: the economic factors influencing the decision to come
to the United States, the often harrowing journey, the exploitation upon
arrival, and the political factors that influence policy… [A] worthy
examination of undocumented immigration in the American South through the lens
of young love.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Marquardt
provides a critical view of the stigmas and difficulties plaguing undocumented
youth in U.S. schools without glossing over the legal realities of deportation
and detainment.” —School Library
Journal
“Marquardt's Dream Things True vividly weaves
to life the thrill of falling in love in the South while awakening readers to
the struggles of US-Mexican immigration policies. In this touching
coming-of-age story, full of hope and possibilities, Marquardt captures the
bittersweet world of undocumented teens living in the US and the power of true
love.”
—Malin Alegria, author of Estrella’s
Quinceañera and the Border Town series
“Dream Things True by
Marie Marquardt is a story that must be told and needs to be read. With
sensitivity and care, Marquardt deftly illustrates the struggles and hopes of
Alma, an undocumented teenager living in the United States. Alma's story
reflects the lives of millions of young people trapped between countries and
cultures, longing for a place to belong. An important story that's full
of heart, it will forever change the way you view those who live their lives in
the shadows.” —Jennifer Mathieu, author of The Truth About Alice
DREAM THINGS TRUE
Blog Tour
Excerpt
From
Dream Things True (St. Martin's Griffin) by Marie Marquardt
Evan
led her onto the dock, where a dozen people she didn’t know were climbing into ski boats. She watched as
all of
these strangers, presumably students at her new school, casually distributed themselves into boats.
Do
teenagers own boats? Alma wondered. Evan led her onto his
boat,
where two other people were already rummaging around under the seats for life jackets. An athletic-looking girl with
long
brown hair threw her one.
“I’m Caroline,” she
said, “and that’s Logan.” She motioned toward a short, muscular guy with a shaved head. He had his back to Alma, and was untying ropes from the boat. Hearing his name, he turned and grinned.
“¡Bienvenidos!”
he said in terrible, Southern-accented Spanish.
“Just ignore him when he
acts
like an
idiot,” Caroline said. “That’s what I do.”
Evan got behind the wheel and started the engine. Just as he was backing out, an amazingly beautiful girl came running down the dock.
“Evan, hon! Wait for me!” she called out.
The girl reached the edge of the dock and, without hesitating, leapt gracefully across the water and
toward the boat. She
was wearing nothing but a
bright-red string bikini. Her sandy-blond hair bounced and shone like a model’s in a shampoo commercial.
Evan pulled her
safely onto the
boat, and she
collapsed into the
passenger seat.
“Thanks,
sweetheart,” she said to Evan.
“This is
Alma,” Evan said, nodding in Alma’s direction. “She’ll be starting at Gilberton next week. And this is
Mary Catherine,” he said, grabbing onto the beautiful girl’s shoulder and squeezing hard. “She’s
my perpetually late neighbor.”
“But
he loves me anyway!” Mary Catherine proclaimed. Then she smiled, revealing perfect teeth to match her perfect body.
Were they flirting? Alma felt a
tightness in her chest, knowing that she was no competition for this girl.
The engine rumbled, and the boat lurched forward from the dock. Evan grasped Alma’s arm to steady her and
then pulled her toward him. “Ready to learn how to drive?”
“You’re
mocking me,” she called out above the noise of the engine. “I don’t think you even need a license to drive a boat,” Evan said.
“Plus, no brakes, so we’re safe.”
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he wedged her body in front of his and guided her hand to the throttle. “Do you want to go faster?”
“No.” The wind pressed her back against him, and she felt the heat of his chest through the T-shirt.
“Are
you scared?” His lip brushed her ear as he spoke.
“Yes,” she said. Her body was off
balance, as if the floor of the boat were shifting under her.
“Get
over it,” he replied, lifting her hand gently and placing it on the throttle.
Together, their hands guided the throttle forward. She tried looking across the lake, in
the direction that he was steering, but all she noticed was his
hand on
hers. The floor kept shifting. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be drunk.
He slipped out from behind her.
“I’m
gonna dig out the skis. Just keep going straight, Alma. It’s easy.”
She grasped the wheel hard to avoid falling back. The boat skittered over the water, and the wind fused Evan’s T-shirt to her practically bare
skin. Alma tried hard to
ignore the dull ache spreading at the pit of her stomach.
After a few minutes, Evan took the wheel. Caroline and
Logan both dived into the water and began to swim fast as Evan tossed a
ski
rope in their direction.
“This should be entertaining,” he said as they wrestled with their slalom skis.
“Entertaining?”
Alma asked. “Yeah, they’ll both show off.” “Are they, uh, a couple?”
“Most of the time. They fight all the time and
break up every couple of months.”
Evan
shoved the throttle forward and the boat lurched.
“Logan gets bored easily,” he said. “He’s always looking for a rush.” Logan and Caroline both
popped out of the water, crisscrossing each
other as they leapt and dived over the wake.
“So they just break up for fun?”
“Yeah, I think it runs in his blood. Everybody says his dad was the same, back in the day. He stole boats and stuff, just for the hell of it.” He shrugged and continued, “Which is weird, since
he’s the sheriff now.” The sheriff. Evan said it like it was nothing, like he was describing
the
color of Logan’s dad’s car, or
his
height—not like he
knew this man had the power to throw people in jail and keep them there.
Evan gestured toward Logan and Caroline and winced. “That’s gotta hurt.”
Caroline was spinning in rapid circles as Logan did strange contortions with his arm.
Maybe, Alma thought, they were all so
used to being around powerful people that they didn’t even notice it anymore. Maybe they never had.
“Come
back here, Alma!” Mary Catherine called from the back of the boat. “I can’t hear what y’all are saying and I’m lonely.”
Alma glanced at Evan and shrugged. She made her way back and settled into a bucket seat next to Mary Catherine.
Alma
wasn’t sure how to
make conversation with Mary Catherine. She seemed so unapproachable—this girl who wore a bikini confidently, like she was hanging in comfy sweats. But within moments, it
became
clear that
Mary Catherine—or M.C., as Evan called her—was not your typical Southern belle.
“So,
when did you and Evan start hooking up?” she asked. For starters, she was excruciatingly blunt.
“Uh, we’re just sort of friends,” Alma replied, shrugging.
“Alma, honey,” she said, “I’ve known that boy forever, and the way he looks at you, he doesn’t wanna be your friend.”
M.C. let out a deep, bellowing howl that sounded like it should come from a balding white guy with a beer gut. Alma was so surprised by M.C.’s laugh that she forgot to be embarrassed.
“OK.” Alma shrugged. “Maybe we’re not exactly friends. But we’re
not hooking up.”
“Makes sense,” Mary Catherine responded, sort of talking to herself. “Evan doesn’t really hook up. Plus, I would have known.”
Confused
and desperate to change the subject, Alma asked, “So how did you two meet?”
“Meet?” M.C. asked. “We’ve been neighbors for as long as
either of us can remember. I mean, we used to play doctor together! I was the doctor. I always made Evan be the nurse.”
Mary
Catherine bellowed again.
“So when you and Evan do hook up,” she said, “you can thank me for his gentle, nurturing touch.”
Now
Alma was blushing.
“You
mean, you and Evan were, uh . . .”
“Together? Lord, no. He’s like a baby brother to me, Alma. I think
I went through puberty something like four years before he did.”
Alma
and Mary Catherine turned to look at Evan, his perfectly toned arms casually gripping the steering wheel, his broad shoulders gleaming in the sun.
“My baby’s all grown up,” Mary Catherine continued. “Now, he’s what my grandmomma calls a ‘tall drink of water.’ ”
They
both laughed, catching Evan’s attention.
“What
are you ladies talking about back there?” he asked.
“Nothing that concerns you, Ev,
sweetheart,” Mary Catherine re- plied. “You just drive the boat.”
“Not unless Alma gets back up here to finish her driving lesson,” Evan said, reaching his arm out toward her.
Mary
Catherine laughed and nudged her out of the seat.
“You heard him,” she called out. “You better get on
up there, darlin’, because I’m sure as hell not driving.”
Alma closed her eyes and stood up slowly, her head spinning and her legs quivering.
He took her
hand and pulled her
body
back toward the
wheel, and she realized, finally, the meaning of the word “swoon.”
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