{"product_id":"the-dream-isbn-9780345503893","title":"The Dream","description":"During the hard and bitter years of his youth in England, Harry Bernstein’s selfless mother never stops dreaming of a better life in America, no matter how unlikely. Then, one miraculous day when Harry is twelve years old, steamship tickets arrive in the mail, sent by an anonymous benefactor. Suddenly, a new life full of the promise of prosperity seems possible–and the family sets sail for America, meeting relatives in Chicago. For a time, they get a taste of the good life: electric lights, a bathtub, a telephone. But soon the harsh realities of the Great Depression envelop them. Skeletons in the family closet come to light, mafiosi darken their doorstep, family members are lost, and dreams are shattered. In the face of so much loss, Harry and his mother must make a fateful decision–one that will change their lives forever. And though he has struggled for so long, there is an incredible bounty waiting for Harry in New York: his future wife, Ruby. It is their romance that will finally bring the peace and happiness that Harry’s mother always dreamed was possible.“Worthy . . . [follows] Bernstein’s family . . . as they struggle to find a new life in America in 1922.”—\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Packed with carefully crafted dialogue and descriptions that transport us, with keen verisimilitude, from working-class England to Depression-era Chicago . . . Visceral, honest writing [makes] Bernstein’s memoir impossible to put down.”—\u003ci\u003eJewish News Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] wise, unsentimental memoir.”—\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Beneath the poignant descriptions of places and times past, beneath the rising and falling patterns of these characters’ lives, we hear what Wordsworth called ‘the still sad music of humanity.’ ”—\u003ci\u003eWashington Post Book World\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Gripping . . . a powerful story of courage, sacrifice, determination, financial hardship and love.”—\u003ci\u003eJewish Chronicle\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This little book is a marvel, sparely written by a man with almost 100 years experience.”—\u003ci\u003eDeseret Morning News\u003c\/i\u003eNinety-eight-year-old Harry Bernstein emigrated to the United States with his family after World War I. He began writing his acclaimed first book, The Invisible Wall, after the death of his wife, Ruby. He has also been published in “My Turn” in Newsweek. Bernstein lives in Brick, New Jersey, where he is working on another book.\u003ci\u003eChapter One \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Dreams played an important part in our lives in those early days in  England. Our mother invented them for us to make up for all the things we lacked  and to give us some hope for the future. Perhaps, also, it was for herself, to escape  the miseries she had to endure, which were caused chiefly by my father, who cared  little about his family. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The dreams were always there to brighten our lives a little.  Only they came and went, beautiful while they lasted, but fragile and quick to vanish.  They were like the soap bubbles we used to blow out of a clay pipe, sending them  floating in the air above us in a gay, colorful procession, each one tantalizing but  elusive. When we reached up to seize one and hold it in our hand, it burst at the  slightest touch and disappeared. That is how our dreams were. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Take, for instance,  the front parlor. For years and years, as long as we had lived in the house, the  front room, intended to be a parlor, had remained empty, completely without furniture  of any sort, simply because we could not afford to buy any. The fireplace had never  been lit, and stood there cold and gray. But that wasn’t how it appeared in the dream  my mother conjured up for us. It would, she promised, be warm and cozy, with red  plush furniture, a luxurious divan, and big, comfortable chairs. It would have a  red plush carpet on the floor too, and on top of all that there would be a piano.  Yes, a piano with black and white keys that we could all play on. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Oh, it was a  wonderful dream, and we used to pretend it had already happened and we were lounging  on the chairs, with my sister Rose stretched out on the divan. She, more than any  of us, gave vent to a vivid imagination, playing the part of a duchess and giving  commands to servants in a haughty tone, with an imaginary lorgnette held to her eyes.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Then what happened? My mother must have done a lot of soul searching, and it must  have cost her many a sleepless night before she reached her decision to do what Rose  afterward, in her bitterness, called treachery. But what else could my poor mother  have done? She was struggling desperately to keep us all alive with the little money  my father doled out to her every week from his pay as a tailor, keeping the bulk  of it for his drinking and gambling. She had to do something to keep us from starving,  so she turned the front room into a small shop, where she sold faded fruits and vegetables,  which she scavenged from underneath the stalls in the market. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A common shop, no  less, to break that beautiful bubble. My sister Rose never forgave her, and indeed  the bitterness and resentment lasted a lifetime, and she hardly ever talked to my  mother again. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But that’s how our dreams were, and it didn’t seem as if the really  big one my mother had would be any different. This was the dream of going to America.  This was the one my mother would never give up. It was the panacea for all her ills,  the only hope she had left of a better life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We had relatives there–not hers; she  had none of her own, having been orphaned as a child in Poland, then passed from  one unwilling and often unkind household to another until she was sixteen and able  to make her way to England. They were my father’s relatives, his father and mother,  and about ten brothers and sisters, a large brood of which he was the oldest. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At  one time they too had lived in England, and in the very same house where we now lived,  that whole family crowded into a house that was scarcely big enough for ours with  only six children. No wonder they fought so often among themselves; it was for space,  probably, they fought, although they fought with their neighbors as well. They were  a noisy, unruly lot, I am told, and my father was the worst of them all when it came  to battling. In fact, he terrorized his entire family with his loud voice and ready  fists; even my grandmother may have been afraid of him, and she was pretty tough herself.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As for my grandfather, he played no part in any of this. He let my grandmother  rule the house, which she did with an iron fist except when it came to my father.  But my grandfather managed to keep pretty much to himself. He was a roofer by trade  and he was away often, mending slate roofs in distant towns and enjoying himself  immensely. He would sing while he worked, songs of all nationalities, Jewish, Irish,  English, Polish, often drawing a large, appreciative audience below. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In an old  cardboard box where my mother used to keep an assortment of family photographs I  once found a sepia photo of my father’s entire family, all of them arranged in three  rows one behind the other, all dressed in their best clothes, smiling and looking  like well-behaved, perfectly respectable children, far from the ruffians that they  were. In the center sat the two parents, my grandmother heavy and double-chinned  with a massive bosom and the glower on her face that was always there. Beside her  sat my grandfather, a bearded and quite distinguished-looking gentleman holding a  silver-knobbed cane between his legs, wearing a frock coat. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e My father was not in  that photograph, and for a very good reason: He was still in Poland. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The story,  I have always felt, was somewhat apocryphal, yet older members of the family swear  to its truth. At seven years of age my father had been put to work in a slaughterhouse,  where he cleared up the remains of the animals that had been slaughtered for butchering.  He worked twelve and sometimes more hours a day. At nine he started to drink. At  ten he was defying my grandmother and a terror to all of them. He could not be handled.  So one day while he was at work my grandmother gathered up the rest of her children  and together with my grandfather they all fled to England, leaving my father to fend  for himself. When he got home and found them gone, he almost went mad with rage.  He followed them, however, and after many difficult weeks of travel finally got to  England. He arrived at our street in the middle of the night, having learned from  other Jewish people where they lived, and he banged on the door and demanded to be  let in. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e My grandmother was awakened along with the rest of the household. Peering  down from her bedroom window and seeing who it was, she went to get the bucket that  stood on the landing and was used as a toilet for the night. It was full to the brim.  She carried it to the open window and poured it down on his head. He let out a yell  of rage, but refused to give up and kept banging on the door until she was forced  to let him in. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So now it was the same thing all over again, except that he was  vengeful and more dangerous than ever, and my grandmother racked her brain for another  means of getting rid of him. It was at this time, so the story goes, that my mother  arrived in England and straight into the hands of my grandmother, who immediately  saw the solution to her problem in this sweet, innocent young orphaned girl, who  had no friends, no relatives, nobody in the world to turn to. It was not hard to  promote the match between her and my father, so my mother, knowing nothing about  him, fell into the trap of a marriage that brought her nothing but misery for the  rest of her life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That wasn’t the end of the story. No sooner had this marriage  taken place than my grandmother lost no time in putting as much distance as she could  between her and her oldest son. Once again she packed her things, gathered her brood  together, and took them off to America, and out of the goodness of her heart she  arranged with the landlord for the newly married couple to take over her house. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In view of all this it would seem utterly useless for my mother to appeal to my  father’s family–my grandmother, especially–for help in coming to America. Twice they  had fled from my father. What chance was there that they would spend their money to  buy the steamship tickets that she always asked for and that would bring him back  into their lives? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Yet, knowing this, knowing the terrible story of how they had  abandoned him in Poland and the suspicion that it had been something similar when  they went to America, my mother wrote to all of them just the same. By this time  the children were grown up, and most of them were married and out of my grandmother’ s house, so there were many letters to write.Author of The Invisible Wall and The Golden Willow [quote]--USA Today","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303835062501,"sku":"NP9780345503893","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345503893.jpg?v=1767739079","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-dream-isbn-9780345503893","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}