Review of Forever We Dream, a Novel by Mark Workman

The Transformative Power of Hope—Review of Forever We Dream, a Novel by Mark Workman

We are all accustomed to consider success, career and talent as privileges for normal people. But what “normal” means for most individuals?

Maybe, it means the absence of physical and psychical flaws. However, great achievements are not the result of physically perfect persons, but a proof of strength coming from our innermost hopes. Nobody is denied the hope to dream, even when appearances suggest otherwise.

Plot and Meaning

This is, in short, the compelling meaning of Forever We Dream, the debut novel by Mark Workman. Set in the magical 1970s, the epoch of the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever, the novel tells the story of three conjoined sisters, Elliana, Bellamona and Gabriella. The triplets share not only parts of their body and internal organs, but also the dream to become rockstars and find their mother who abandoned them long ago. The opportunity to participate in an American music competition is for the triplets the great occasion to get noticed by a wide national audience, including their lost mummy.

The girls are willing to do anything to appear on the Television and perform their rock songs. The competition, however, turns out to be more challenging than expected, because their low-self-esteem is tested by the mockery and bullying of Twyla-Violet, the cruel rival and daughter of a former Swedish fashion model. Every episode of the show becomes thus a battle to the death, where the triplets must prove their skills amid unpredictable vicissitudes, lies and deception. For them, the show is everything, it is a way to prove their force, dominate their fragility, and make their abandoning mom proud of them. For the show producers, instead, the triplets are only freak phenomena, as they are often named by Twyla Violet. Freaks, hence, that the show business uses for audience purposes, not to allow them to win the competition. Through a compelling plot and vibrant dialogues, Forever We Dream navigates the delicate topic of disability with hope and optimism.

Topic and Insights

However, disability is not the only topic that the author faces in the novel. There are also twisted parental relationships which make the burden of disability even more intolerable for children, increasing their low self-esteem. There is also a dip into the post-partum depression which affects mothers soon after giving birth to their baby.

In this gripping and breathtaking tale, the maternal depression occurs after the birth of the conjoined sisters. Post-partum depression is a sordid inner evil that can push people to commit insane deeds, such as the one of Elizabeth, the mommy of the characters of the novel. In the grip of an unreasonable mental sorrow, the woman attempts to drown her three babies in the bath tub. This sick gesture causes her separation from the husband and the little daughters. In a desperate endeavor to save the babies from a dangerous and depressed woman, the father, Benson, a man who lives doing editorial translations, decides to divorce from Elizabeth, preventing her from seeing the girls.

The Twists

This moving twist of the story educates readers to a great lesson of life. The girls, in fact, believe their mother abandoned them. But actually, she was forced by her husband to leave them. The lie which has hovered for years in the life of the triplets was engineered by their dad to defend them from a dangerous woman and a dreadful truth. But salvation and redemption are always around the corner. Lies, therefore, are not always bad, and the truth is not always good. In an intricate maze of controversial feelings, the story, at the end, insinuates itself gradually in your soul, teaching the real values of life and accustoming us to distinguish what is worth and what is not. A virtue that our contemporary world has forgotten, stimulated by fake dreams of success pumped by digital archetypes and social vacuities. When you chase an illusory success, you gain only depression and solitude. Just like the depression of Elizabeth, the mother of the three conjoined sisters, who wanted to be a successful singer and finished to get married to a man with a normal daily routine.

Here, success becomes a pretext to talk about emotions. It is in the contrast between external appearance and true interiority that the characters go through a path of transformation and personal development. In this unforgettable and gripping story, the transformative power comes from hope, a steadfast hope to dream and never give up. As the three conjoined sisters do in every moment of their life.

The Author

This poignant novel represents not only the homage to the courage of normality, but it also is the tribute of the author to rock music. Mark Workman, indeed, toured the world as a manager and lighting designer of famous rock bands for over 30 years. After leaving the music business in 2015, the author worked as a counsellor in a drug and alcohol treatment center in Malibu.

The love for the Bee Gees and the nostalgia for the 1970s were a strong source of inspiration for this American novelist, leading him to write Forever We Dream, released in March of 2025. The topic of hope is clearly expressed in every page of the novel. In the entire book, the central emotion always remains hope. Hope to dream amid solitude and criticism, hope to survive the disease, hope for a fair and better world, without prejudices and discrimination.

Conclusion

The final conclusion of the author wonderfully summarizes the meaning of the book:

“Hope is like a distant beacon, a radiant light guiding us through our desire for a better life. We toil endlessly to achieve it, steadfastly convinced of hope’s transformative power, wishing for metamorphosis like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. We race through life, laboring to make our dreams come true, often neglecting those we care about in our quest to improve their lives, when all they ever wanted was our valuable time and caring attention. That was the dream that never came true for them. What matters most is quite often within reach.”