Anti-hero [Albert] Scully [in The Dream Watcher] broods unhappily and self-consciously about not fitting into the readymade social forms espoused by his hyper-tense mother, but most of all about not actually living anything…. Scully's a young Thoreau without self-trust until 80-year-old Orpha Woodfin enters early in the story…. When, at her death, Albert finds that she's been lying about her glamorous past, all he knows is that she made sense. Most young readers will take nicely to Scully, and many boys will delight at seeing sensitivities usually reserved for the other sex encompassed in one who, very much his own man, represents the more contemplative segment of the Now generation.