Kepler's 2020 Project in the News:
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Who we are is the result of what we have experienced, including people and places. Charlotte Sanders, who tells the story of how she became the woman she is in Dreaming In French, this includes a quirky but stylish American mother, a sister who becomes "more French than the French," a father who remains distant and pitiable, and a cast of friends and lovers that spans two continents and hugely varied world views.
Moreover, Charlotte is revealed as a product of two cultures, Paris and New York. Some of the formative events of our lives are blatant and obvious: the break-up of a marriage, the loss of a loved one, a failed friendship or love affair. Other influences work in more subtle ways. In the title of this book, author Megan McAndrew suggests the importance of these subconscious influences. Most students of French will remember being told by an instructor that when you begin dreaming in French, the language has permeated your psyche. So it is with Charlotte Sanders, being raised in Paris as a young teenager, when many of the formative blocks of one's adult personality are established.
With a keen and clear eye, McAndrew gives Charlotte Sanders the voice to tell us who she has become between the ages of 15 and 30, and how the dazzling diversity of perspectives on life and love that derive from her bi-cultural background have formed a unique and intriguing person. In the process, we come to care for and cheer Charlotte on, and also to learn more than a little about how we all become who we are.
Jeff K.
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