Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee by Dodd Darin and Maxine Paetro

Warner Books, Incorporated [1994] ISBN: 0446517682

AMG Rating: 6

AMG Review: Reading Dream Lovers feels like having a somewhat hysterical stranger tell you his life story. It is compelling, yet disturbing, in both content and the way it’s told. In this unusual tell-all, Dodd Darin makes numerous shameful revelations about his celebrity parents, Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, and others in his family, not to shock readers, but ostensibly to sort out his own feelings about them. Darin is apologetic about airing the family’s secrets and faults, reflecting on how his parents would feel reading his disclosures. Ultimately, though, the principal “shattered life” Darin is concerned about is his own.

Darin takes a unsettlingly familiar tone with his readers, often leading to the unsettling sensation that he is speaking to close friends or dictating to his diary. While this personal approach may have been therapeutic for him, it makes for uncomfortable reading and a clumsy narrative flow. It doesn’t help that the story is often moved forward by reminiscences (indicated by long passages of italic text) from friends, family members, and professional associates of Darin and Dee. The harsh criticism of Bobby Darin from his sister, Vee, in particular, indicates that Dodd isn’t the only family member with conflicted feelings about the late singer.

Although the Dee-Darin marriage was brief, it is central to Dream Lovers. The characters and situations could have been drawn from the work of James M. Cain or Tennessee Williams. Bobby Cassotto Darin was raised never knowing his father’s identity, believing his mother was his sister, and always aware of a heart condition he thought would kill him by age 30. Sandra (Dee) Douvan was raised by a stifling, dysfunctional mother who may have willingly overlooked her husband’s sexual abuse of Sandra. The couple’s youth—he was 24, she was 16 when they married—and disastrous family backgrounds ensured drama and tragedy, and Dream Lovers delivers plenty of both.

While the Dee-Darin story is fascinating and obscure, the way it’s told will leave readers wondering if dragging such skeletons out of the closet is ever justified, no matter how therapeutic it may be for the author. — James A. Gardner, All Music Guide