SOURCE: Zaleski, Jeff. Review of The Sweetest Dream, by Doris Lessing. Publishers Weekly 249, no. 3 (21 January 2002): 63-4.

In the following review, Zaleski observes parallels between Lessing's life experience and the narrative of The Sweetest Dream.

In lieu of writing volume three of her autobiography (“because of possible hurt to vulnerable people”), the grand dame of English letters delves into the 1960s and beyond [in The Sweetest Dream], where she left off in her second volume of memoirs, Walking in the Shade. The result is a shimmering, solidly wrought, deeply felt portrait of a divorced “earth” mother and her passel of teenage live-ins. Frances Lennox and her two adolescent sons, Andrew and Colin, and their motley friends have taken over the bottom floors of a rambling house in Hampstead, London. The house is owned by Frances's well-heeled German-born ex-mother-in-law, Julia, who tolerates Frances's slovenly presence out of guilt for past...