Overheard In A Dream - Torey L. Hayden

Overheard in a Dream is Torey Hayden's first novel after a series of books detailing her career as an educational psychologist and specialist education teacher. Her usual style is autobiographical, but this novel steps away from her experiences and unravels the story of Connor, a boy diagnosed with autism from an early age and who fails to improve in specialist schools.

Hayden's style of writing is gripping. She uses the characters ...
...some extent she has incorporated some of her personal experience and knowledge into the text. This novel not only had me wondering how Connor and his family would progress, but also took me to a completely different realm with Torgon, a fictional goddess of type whose story also unravels as the novel moves forward.

Characters;

James is a child psychiatrist who has left his ex wife and two children, Mickey and Becky in ... more

Overheard in a Dream is Torey Hayden's first novel after a series of books detailing her career as an educational psychologist and specialist education teacher. Her usual style is autobiographical, but this novel steps away from her experiences and unravels the story of Connor, a boy diagnosed with autism from an early age and who fails to improve in specialist schools.

Hayden's style of writing is gripping. She uses the characters to tell the story but it is obvious that to some extent she has incorporated some of her personal experience and knowledge into the text. This novel not only had me wondering how Connor and his family would progress, but also took me to a completely different realm with Torgon, a fictional goddess of type whose story also unravels as the novel moves forward.

Characters;

James is a child psychiatrist who has left his ex wife and two children, Mickey and Becky in New York and moved to South Dakota to run his own practice. His children visit in holidays and during their visits the reader learns about their own lives and how their mother is moving on having a new partner who the children grow to dislike. James works on the basis that the room is that of the client and therefore anything goes. "You decide" is his key phrase and that goes with both children and adults. He allows the client to do as they please; he then interacts with them asking them key questions or noting down behavioural patterns.

Connor is a 9 year old boy diagnosed as a toddler with autism. His parents have had to take him out of a school for autistic children and are trying a new method in sending him to James. For Connor, on arrival it is clear his needs are great, he makes noises rather than speaks words and his stuffed cat and string and foils around his waist are his safety net, with "the cat knows" being his main verbal interaction initially. However, it is also clear that Connor is an extremely intelligent child who is aware of his surroundings.

Laura Deighton is Connor's mother, a very complex character whose whole life story is told throughout the novel. Laura is a writer whose background hasn't been told to her husband in great detail. During Laura's sessions with James she discloses her childhood and the fantasy woman or goddess that is Torgon who stayed with her through childhood and into adulthood. Torgon being such an important aspect of Laura's life that she began to manipulate the story and use the vision for financial gain this in turn led to friends she never had an a boyfriend who is quite clearly suffering with mental health problems from quite early on in the novel but the extent of which are only revealed nearer the end of the book. Laura's story under-rides Connor's but Hayden makes it work, she makes them interlink. Laura is oblivious to her son's ability and his progress, she doesn't see him as a child who need support but as a child who is badly behaved and cannot change. She doesn't talk about her son in therapy instead concentrating on her past.

Alan is Connor's father a normal guy with a ranch, who wants the best for his wife and children but simply cannot cope with the stresses of home and who has distanced himself from his wife in the home that he can help Connor and rebuild the family he loves. Alan is supportive of his son and does not dismiss him, he listens and he encourages and aside of James, Alan is the only other person to acknowledge that Connor is getting better as the novel unfolds.

Morgana is Connor's younger sister, as James encourages therapy for the whole family in order to help Connor; Morgana also has sessions with the child's psychiatrist. You can see that throughout the novel Morgana's desire is for a normal brother to play with and to protect her. She divulges information to James which assists him in piecing together the family story and also gives Morgana and insight into Connor's progress when he brings them both in for a joint session.

Torgon; Torgon came to Laura when she was outside this woman with long silky black hair, a vision which had to be followed, as Laura moved forward Torgon led her to the Forest and to a realm which would take over her life forever. Torgon was the Benna of the Forest, a person of low working caste who was chosen as the holy one to serve Dwr. Thought of a divine by the village people and an "embodiment of God". Her role as the Benna meant being with the Seer and carrying out Dwr's wishes. As the Benna, Torgon was to cut all contact with her family and move from the village into the compound where the holy lived and were served by acolytes. They had their own language and their own rules. This was all seen by Laura who as a child knew that Torgon wasn't real but couldn't let her go.

Torgon came to Laura when she was a child just short of 8 years old. The visions stayed with her into her twenties and as a young women Laura documented them, writing them as stories, stories which are re-read throughout this novel; the underlying cause of Connor's problems arise from the world created around Torgon. The written work of Laura is extremely graphic for a child so young and the visions she had were also graphic, to the point where she was witnessing a completely different world as if she were there. This is fundamental to the novel because it is Torgon's world which makes the story so compelling and its Torgon's involvement which keeps the reader seeking more answers and an explanation as to how it is important.

As James works with the Deighton family he unravels many problems and family secrets which have not been shared before. He discovers a family whose lives have continued despite underlying problems not being addressed. He finds a boy who is not autistic at all and whose extreme intelligence and lack of communications skills has led to a misdiagnosis.

I would recommend this, Torey Hayden's first novel to anybody. It differs from her autobiographical work in that whilst it does concentrate on the work of a specialist it moves on from the child and acknowledges the wider family, something which hasn't really happened in her previous books. For me the novel is well structured. It concentrates linking the reality with the fantasy and is successful in doing so. Hayden uses chapters and asterisks to divide the chapters when moving on. This works really well because the novel is telling the story of two families or 5 key characters which could become very complicated if not written properly.

The majority of chapters are manageable at 8/9 pages long and there are 46 chapters in total. I found that I forgot the chapters and would continue reading before realising how much I had read, until I became so engrossed that I read 20 chapters completed the book and realised it was 2am and I had work in the morning.

I would like to think that this has given an insight into this novel and made you want to read it without giving too much away. The plot is great and with a well written twist at the end which I am not going to even touch on in the review because it will spoil your enjoyment of the book should you know the end.

Note: This is a written novel - for the sake of Ciao I have had to rate its "listenability" and whether I would listen to it again - these do not exist as it is not audio. 

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