Dreamland
Set on an apparently idyllic Caribbean island in the sun, Dreamland is a tale of towering idealism and deadly illusion. Meet Max, a man with a huge vision, a gifted amateur who has long wanted to found a completely self-sustainable community of like-minded people. When he finally gets to realize his great utopian dream, he rapidly finds himself confronted both by the venality of his compatriots, and, worse of the local, highly corrupt, society with which he is forced to work. Meet Ettie, lost soul, flower-child and sexually powerful woman. Finally, meet Don Sinclair, doctor on the run from his past, with little belief in the future.
As for Max, struggling on, he is forced, time and again, to compromise, to survive. When his friend, Dr Sinclair, arrives to help he, in turn, is forced to confront his own painful reality, with the real world, he too had wished to escape. In the foreground are the other colonists, each with their own demon to face down.
Meanwhile, the island is in transition between two warring political factions, each implicated in a drugs-fuelled civil war. As events unfold toward an inevitable and bloody conclusion, all those engaged with the Phoenix Project, Max Vansittart’s grand illusion, will have to come to terms not just with who they are, and what they really want, but with the world outside, drawing ever nearer, with intimations of a deadly conclusion for all.
Dreamland is a book about hope springing eternal. But what do you do when hope dies? Where do you go? Who do you trust?