River of Hidden Dreams
The "hidden dreams" in Connie May Fowler's novel actually become the narratives of Sadie Hunter's mother Oneida, and her grandmother Mima, who both died in a heavy Florida rain storm when she was only nine years old. She watched them die as the roof of the saloon caved in, while they were dancing together.
Dancing in each other's arms was the best way for these two women to die, because they had spent many years rejecting each other, something that was difficult for Sadie to understand. Her grandmother as a child was forced into an Indian reservation with her parents, but an eccentric Florida woman "rescued" Mima and attempted to change her into a young white debutante. But it was Mr. Sammy, a young black man who also narrates the story, who got her pregnant, and when the child was born, Mima rejected him and later their young daughter Oneida.
Sadie, Oneida's child, grows up unable to put all parts of these dream stories together. She finally moves into the boat Mr. Sammy had built for Mima years before and makes a living motoring tourists around Key West. But only Carlos, her Cuban lover, is with her when they discover a wooden box containing a young boy's mummified body floating near the boat. Carlos believes this to have some mystical meaning in their lives and does not rebury it until they finally take the boat up to St. Augustine.
Once there, Sadie sees the fort where her grandmother's "soul was cut away", and all the bittersweet stories she'd heard seem to fit together. She takes the wings of a heron she watched die in Key West and wraps them around the mummified child. Then she and Carlos weight down the box so it will sink to the bottom. To each of them, this symbolizes the burial of misunderstandings and fears which have haunted their separate lives.
RIVER OF HIDDEN DREAMS gives a good panoramic view of Florida today, as well as a multiracial picture of the past and present. The fact that Connie May Fowler dedicated her novel to her grandmother, Oneida Hunter May, suggests that the story could be, to some extent, autobiographical. The book won her a 1992-1993 grant from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs.