Product Description

A masterful new novel about memory, family secrets, and the transforming power of truth.

It happened to his older brother, and now it's happening to Stephen. Night after night, he has the same nightmare--a baby crying in a treetop, a remarkable tree house threatened by fire from below. His distraught mother calls in Hesketh Martin. A witch, Stephen calls her. A practitioner of "applied kinesiology," his mother insists. But weird potions can't cure Stephen. Nor could psychiatrists heal his brother, Marcus, who left the family four years before, shortly after their father left. Now fifteen himself, the same age Marcus was when he ran away, Stephen is determined to unlock the meaning of his bad dreams and uncover the story of his own childhood. With characteristic wit and perception, Tim Wynne-Jones has crafted a masterful novel that has much to say about memory, family secrets, and the transforming power of truth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1685335 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-01
• Binding: Paperback

Amazon.ca
In this well-constructed young adult novel by Governor General's Award winner Tim Wynne-Jones, Stephen Fair is a 15-year-old boy caught in the middle of a dysfunctional family. He lives with his mother and younger sister in a house shaped like an ark, which his father, a one-time hippie, built for them before leaving the family. Soon after he left, Stephen's older brother, Marcus, started having nightmares, and he too soon disappeared from their lives. Now, four years later, the same nightmares have descended on Stephen.

Stephen's dreams are filled with unending ladders and crying babies, and they take place in a house that, like his own, has a real tree growing through it. He senses that his mother knows what is causing his nightmares and that she is holding back information about his past. With help from his new best friend, Virginia Elizabeth Dulcima Skye, who is having family problems of her own, Stephen decides he must begin to deal with his situation. After discovering hidden letters and pictures that reveal a complex family history, their secret turns out to be far more disturbing than his nightmares. In the end, however, Stephen decides he is better off knowing the truth.

Tim Wynne-Jones does not write down to young adults. He creates complex stories, true-to-life characters and has an ear for teen dialogue. Stephen Fair, which the Canadian Library Association chose as its Book of the Year for 1998, is a slightly dark, original story with a surprise ending, and a great read. (Ages 13 to 16) --Mark Frutkin

Books in Canada
A new book by Tim Wynne-Jones is always something to celebrate and Stephen Fair is no exception. It's a compellingly readable novel that sensitively explores contemporary family life and the ties that bind us to one another.

Fifteen-year-old Stephen Fair's dreams have become plagued by a series of nightmares. What do these dreams mean? Where is this treehouse that he keeps trying to reach? What kind of threat does this raging fire pose? Who is this crying baby?

What makes Stephen's nightmares all the more unsettling is that he is well aware that he's inherited them. His older brother, Marcus, had almost identical dreams, which became so terrifying that Marcus ended up running away from home four years ago. Stephen had listened to Marcus's nightmares, chronicling them each night in a notebook he called Dreamcatcher. Now he's re-living Marcus's dreams himself.

Stephen's mother, Brenda, is almost beside herself with anxiety. When Marcus was nightmare-ridden, she'd invoked all the "pokers and prodders" she could find to help him, and she's ready to try anything to help Stephen-even kinesiology. But Stephen is thoroughly skeptical and is sure that the answers lie deeply embedded in his dreams. Part of the problem, Stephen is positive, is Brenda herself, who just won't leave him be. Her smothering mothering is almost more than he can bear.

As Stephen tries to come to terms with his haunted dreams, he invokes the aid of his buddy Dom and of Virginia Elizabeth Dulcima Skye, budding film-maker and sometime love interest. Virginia, who seems so together and sure of herself artistically, has problems of her own; her parents' marriage seems to be breaking down and Virginia is caught in the middle.

Wynne-Jones has filled up this novel to the brim with as many themes and dilemmas as Noah filled the Ark with (Stephen's home is, in fact, called the Ark-built by his father, who has since abandoned the family). Certainly parents and parenting are at the heart of what makes Stephen Fair such a good novel; Stephen and Dom even create an oath of fatherlessness for their gang, The Usual Suspects. More successfully than Brenda, Wynne-Jones insightfully pokes and prods into the relationships between parents and children (Brenda and Stephen and his sister Toni and Virginia and her parents Marlo and Lehmann are the centrepieces around which Wynne-Jones builds family structure) with sometimes quite surprising conclusions.

In spite of the nightmares that haunt Stephen, and the novel, Stephen Fair isn't entirely a dark and brooding book; rather, it's a paean to the imagination and a celebration of the creative spirit. It's a book filled with creative and imaginative activity: writing, film-making, acting, cooking, editing, building. Parents here create and kids create, sometimes alone, sometimes together, but always with laughter and a lust for finding new ways to communicate. And Wynne-Jones's buoyant prose style is certainly a manifestation of that creative spirit at its finest.

Ultimately, Stephen Fair is a novel that is overflowing with love. Is it intentional that Stephen Fair is as full of love as Wynne-Jones's last novel, The Maestro, was full of hunger for even the smallest scrap of affection? Is too much love too much of a good thing? You'll have to read Stephen Fair and decide for yourself. Jeffrey Canton(Books in Canada)

From School Library Journal
Grade 6 UpAStephen Fair, 15, is having nightmaresAstrange, confusing nightmares about a baby crying in a treetop. He wants to know what they meanAand so does his motherAso she hires a psychic practitioner (Stephen calls her a witch). Her special potions are supposed to heal his "energy blockage." His short life has been an eventful oneAhis father left years ago, and his brother Marcus left, too. Now Stephen needs to unravel the secrets and disturbances of his life and he thinks his dreams and patchy memories hold the key. Then he discovers a letter his mother is hiding from him and sees a puzzling photograph from the past. Could his mother be keeping a secret that involves him? Following his memories and checking out his hunches, the teen unlocks his nightmares and discovers a startling family secret. Stephen is a complex character with colorful friends, including Virginia Elizabeth Dulcima Skye, who helps him learn about family and self. The book may take a while to grab readersAthis is an unusual family (they live in an ark-shaped house and used to live in a treehouse) with an unusual history. But once readers learn where the boy's memories may lead him, they'll be hooked. The conclusion of Stephen's journey is a satisfying surprise as well.ASharon Korbeck, Waupaca Area Public Library,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.