Review: Paula Buermele's The Dream Catcher Tour
Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2007
by ngoldman
Norm Goldman
Title: The Dream Catcher Tour
Author: Paula Buermele ISBN: 1-4327-0353-6
Paula Buermele's The Dream Catcher Tour provides her readers with a peek into the lives of forty-seven women who together embark on a bus tour of the Great Lakes with Northern Experience Tours.
What ensues is a potent collection of stories reflecting Buermele's affirmation that she is an attentive student in the classroom of life. 
Buermele moves effortlessly from one voice to another as her characters relate a variety of tidbits about their lives, some painful while others humorous. However, as one of the women remarks, during the early days of the trip her companions had all seemed much the same, but with each passing day she had come to see the uniqueness of each woman. These accounts also reaffirm an old adage, that no matter where people find themselves they cant help reminiscing and revealing some of their family and psychological baggage that echo the past and at time consume the present. The stories range freely, some sounding familiar while others stirring up sad emotion, as is the case of Leslie who is traveling with her late husbands Aunt Helen. Leslie recounts how she lost her college sweetheart and young husband Steve who had suffered a brain aneurysm shortly after they were married. We also learn that she had lost her parents at a very young age and it was her adopted Aunt Helen who took her under her wing and has been her mentor and friend ever since.
Then there is the familiar tale of Marianne, a wife and mother, who subjugated her own choices for those of her family and as she states, perhaps this trip will bring out the hidden Marianne. And Donna, the future mother-in-law, who is not exactly overjoyed with her sons choice of a wife. Barb, a divorcee, who after thirty-two years of marriage believes the trip would mean a step into the world of self-determination and an escape from a controlling ex-husband who had left her for a trophy wife. Ruthie, who had visited her father in the hospital on her eighth birthday, recounts how she was pleasantly surprised when the Catholic nuns wheeled him into the waiting room to wish her a happy birthday and thus shattering her stereotype of the mean nuns.
Buermele can clearly write and her storytelling is extremely perceptive, demanding quick concentration in the lives of her characters. However, at times in truth I did feel cheated, as some of the stories were underdeveloped and I would have liked to be better acquainted with the raconteurs. In the end though, these stories leave us with something to ponder; the uncertainty of life, the meaning of home and family, and what makes us all tick, for in all of us there is a story to be told.
Click Here to Read Norm's Interview With Paula Buermele
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