The American Woman is the latest book in the Dream Cafe series. When the story begins Jennifer is a young woman living on her family’s farm in Idaho. She showed acting talent in her high school’s theatrical productions and decides to make a move to Los Angeles and try her luck in Hollywood. She eventually becomes dispirited as she realises a career in the movies is looking like an unattainable goal.
Jennifer meets Gareth, a Welshman who is in America doing contract work for an IT company. They begin a relationship and Jennifer moves around the US with Gareth, as his contract dictates. Instead of following a career path of her own, Jennifer’s ambitions have to be subsumed if she wants to stay with Gareth.
How Jennifer finally ended up, alone, in Muswell Hill, England, befriended by the regulars at the Dream Cafe, eventually becomes clear as alternate chapters are narrated by 30 year old Jennifer and her 40 year old self until they meld together in the present. It has been a rocky road and now she faces an uncertain future.
It is always a pleasure to re-visit the Dream Cafe and see how life is treating the regulars. I’m already foreseeing a solution to the Rachel and Andy situation in a future story but I could, of course, be wrong. That being said, I’m sure all the books in the series could all be read as standalones.
This is another lovely book by R J Gould and I’m already imagining a Netflix miniseries about the Dream Cafe.
