Electric Literature is please to reveal the cover of Beautiful Dreamers, the highly anticipated fourth novel by Minrose Gwin, which will be published by Hub City Press on August 27th, 2024. Preorder the book here.
In 1953, Memory Feather and her mother Virginia are welcomed back to the Mississippi Gulf Coast community of Belle Cote, by Virginia’s childhood friend Mac McFadden, a gay man actively participating in the Civil Rights Movement. The three of them form a loving, if unconventional family. But the arrival of Tony, Mac’s “guest,” brings chaos to their quiet life, forever changing Mem and shattering the bonds of family she thought she had. An adult now, Mem recounts her story, telling of the scars—emotional and physical—that Tony imparted on her teenage years, and seeking accountability for her own part in the catastrophic turn of events from her final summer in Belle Cote.
Praised as sweeping, dramatic, and vividly rendered, Beautiful Dreamers is an incandescent novel of innocence, betrayal, love and intolerance, and the honesty we grant to our chosen family.
“In designing the cover for Beautiful Dreamers I wanted to contrast something visually reflective of this beautiful and moving novel with a sense of the graphic language of protest-era Mississippi,” says the designer, Luke Bird. “The painting by Irma Cook (“Young Woman Seated in a Chair with a Green Backdrop”, The Johnson Collection) is contrasted by a vivid, typographic bottom half which features typefaces designed by Vocal Type (“Martin”) and Brandon Nickerson (“Grainville Script”). Vocal Type are a foundry committed to diversifying design through typography, and the use of “Martin” felt like a perfect fit for this book.”
Meg Reid, publisher of Hub City Press, agrees. “Minrose is a terrific writer and I truly believe this novel, which tackles LGBT issues in midcentury Mississippi, is her finest work to date. She creates a portrait of a Gulf town that is both in flux and ancient, populated by a memorable cast of characters. I knew we wanted a painting to give it a classic, timeless feeling, but I also wanted to frame it with more modern fonts and composition. While I was leaning toward landscapes, Luke found the Irma Cook portrait that so perfectly captured the themes of innocence and betrayal, of sexuality and guilt, that the novel is balancing so well. I love working with Luke because he gives the books a close read and crafts covers that are as complex as the stories they hold.”
