Dorothea Dreams

For two years artist Dorothea Howard has been embedding fragments of pottery, wire and glass in the wall of black volcanic rock on her property near Taos. Her solitude is broken when her old friend Ricky, a British travel writer dying of cancer, arrives, saying simply he was drawn to visit. While trying to unravel Dorothea's complex, frightening dreams which feature a 19th century lawyer who is a survivor of the French Revolution, Ricky urges his reluctant friend to show others the wall and move ahead in her artistic career. Then a group of Chicano teen-agers hunted by the police takes over the house. Dorothea's wall is discovered and Ricky's illness goes into crisis. Dorothea, awake, is confronted by her dream-ghost and must act on her convictions as moral, compassionate being and artist. Charnas (The Vampire Tapestry, is billed as a fantasy writer, but this novel, as beautifully layered as Dorothea's wall, is also a very human story about love and loss and continuation. (April 28)