Dreaming Water
by Gail Tsukiyama
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0312316089
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Set in present day California, Dreaming Water is a wrenching portrait of mothers, daughters, and friends. Cate is caring for her daughter Hana who is suffering from Werner's Syndrome, which makes a person age at twice the rate of a healthy individual; at thirty-eight, Hana has the appearance of an eighty year old. As Hana's disease progresses, she and Cate must come to terms with their past and make peace with their future. Their quiet world is turned upside down when Hana's best friend appears with her two energetic daughters after being gone for many years. Gail Tsukiyama is at her best in this poignant, gripping, and beautiful story about love, loss, and friendship.
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1.Gail Tsukiyama uses the Eleanor Roosevelt quote "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift." at the beginning of Dreaming Water. Why does she use it? How does this division shape the story?
2. Why do you think that Gail Tsukiyama chooses to have Dreaming Water occur over a two-day period?
3. Gail Tsukiyama deliberately chooses a disease that manifests itself in very specific ways. Why does she choose Werner's Syndrome?
4. Why is the third voice in the novel Josephine's and not Laura's?
5. What role does water play in the book? What does it mean to Hana? Cate? Max?
6. What role does memory play in the story? How do the characters rely on memory?
7. How does Cate and Max's different cultural backgrounds add to the story?
8. How does the time that Max spends in the internment camp shape the rest of his life?
9. Max's car means so much more to the family than a means of transportation, what else does it symbolize?
10. What role does nature play in Hana and Cate's lives?
11. How does Laura help Hana and Cate come to terms with Hana's illness?
12. Why is Hana able to connect to Josie in ways that Laura isn't?
13. What's the significance of everyone returning to the beach in the end? Is the ending fulfilling? Could it have ended in another way?
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"Tsukiyama creates a bond between Cate and Hana that mothers and daughters will know as almost a physical need, so deeply entwined are they in each other's lives. They anticipate each other's pain; one will unexpectedly laugh or suddenly cry, and the other one responds in kind. The reader, too, laughs and aches under the spell of such graceful writing."
—USA Today
"Beautifully written, effused with both sadness and hope, Tsukiyama's novel cannot fail to move readers."
—Booklist (Starred Review)
"Tsukiyama has a wonderful ability to elicit delicate atmospherics; in particular, she uses the sense of touch to stunning effect."
—Publishers Weekly
"...Tsukiyama blossoms with an intimate portrait of a mother and her dying daughter."
—Kirkus Reviews
