Her dreams were stomped on

Dreamer’s Daughter: Surviving My Childhood and Raising My Father
by Lori Thicke

Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 2026
$25.99  /  9781668204498

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Don’t you wish that your brand-new friend could hand you their origin story? You could savour it, cry over the sad parts, revel in their triumphs, take comfort through the hard bumps in their road knowing that everything would turn out okay for them? You’d be astonished by all the common threads and parallels between your story and theirs and say to them at the end, “Ah, we have so much in common no wonder we became friends.” Also, you could celebrate all the incredible differences that exist between the two of you. I had that wish fulfilled when I read my dear friend and former classmate, Lori Thicke’s, memoir, Dreamer’s Daughter: Surviving My Childhood and Raising My Father. You’ll read that not only is Lori a dreamer, but she’s also a doer, and her writing is a delight.

Beautiful Lori, with glossy hair, a killer smile, hazel eyes, and warm spirit went through more than any child should have to. The loss started when she was abandoned by her mother, Helen, for a man who was a giant loser, who abandoned his six children and wife. Lori was disfavoured by her nurse aunt and grandmother, who they moved in with out of desperation after their house was burnt down.

Just the week before, a long wooden table had been right there, its vinyl tablecloth partly melted where someone—probably me—had left a hot pot. Now it was all gone—along with a pile of letters, and one large brown envelope from the insurance company, stamped in red: final notice.

Remind me to pay that, won’t you, Lor?

I hadn’t reminded him.

“Dad, the fire insurance!” I said, like we still had time to pay it.

I watched the realization dawn across his face: No insurance. No nothing.

My father surveyed the pile of rubble and ash that used to be our home and then turned back to us with a bright look in his eyes. He stretched his arms out, thrusting them skyward.

“Well, kids,” he said, “now we’re free!”

Brad and I exchanged a look of panic. Where our father saw free, we saw homeless.

Whenever she visited her rich aunt and doctor uncle in Brampton, she and her brother were made to polish the silverware like scullery maids. Aunt Joan was the mother of her famous TV star cousin, the late Alan Willis (né Jeffrey) Thicke¹, and her uncle, Dr. Brian Thicke, was his stepfather.

The rental homes they landed in read like a social worker’s rap sheet of unsafe living situations, due to Dacker’s unhinged business ventures that pushed them deeper and deeper into poverty. Lori was left to her own devices for the majority of the time, whereupon she became wrapped up in a religious cult, the Jesus Freaks, and experimented with drugs and alcohol. She had to leave school and wave farewell to her dreams of going to university to be the parent and breadwinner to her father and brother—all before the age of seventeen. Her memoir recounts how each of her dreams was stomped on and how she reclaimed them one-by-one, like crushed petals releasing perfume.

There are multiple rich relationships and themes for the reader to explore despite the surface dysfunction, like the admiration of younger girls for older girls and the positive impact it carries into womanhood (Yes, there’s an “old girls’ network.”). Of course, there’s the central theme of the unshakeable love of daughters for their dads no matter their flaws, versus the unforgivable betrayal of mothers who leave their children. Yet, kind-hearted Lori forgives all her relations who could’ve done something—anything—to bring joy, hope, and light to her early years.

As a retired teacher, I’m touched by the creativity and resilience of children in dysfunctional families as revealed in Lori’s memoir, and in her case, what a curse it can be to be related to a celebrity and to the wealthy when everyone assumes it’s a blessing and an advantage.

“Dad, you’re not coming!” At that moment, I realized how much I wanted to get away. To become whoever I was supposed to be. I wonder now if I’d looked for a place so far away that he couldn’t follow me there—not like the other times. “You don’t even have a visa. You don’t speak French. You can’t move to Paris!”

“Paris?” He looked puzzled. “Why would I move to Paris? I was thinking of Mexico.”

“Mexico?”

“Yes, Mexico. Why not? I can drive down and live in my van.”

My head was spinning. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“About five minutes,” he said. “Since I realized you and Brad don’t need me anymore.”

There are many twists and turns in this true story where the reader will wonder, Will there be a change in fortune for Lori and Brad? Will Dacker ever make one of his businesses successful? When will things get better for these poor people? Will Lori, Brad, and Dacker survive this latest debacle unscathed? You must read Dreamer’s Daughter to find out.

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I had the pleasure of interviewing Lori virtually while she was in Boca de Tomatlàn, Mexico where her father lived in a motor home near the beach leading up to Christmas, as follows:

CLS: How is Lori now? Has she overcome all of those early traumas, or do they still haunt her? Has she achieved all that she wanted to accomplish in life? Tell us, Lori, were any of your dreams crushed? It doesn’t appear that they were from your memoir, but only you can answer that question. 

LT: For me, this quote encapsulates my childhood: “Barn’s burnt down, now I can see the moon.” If our house hadn’t gone up in flames three weeks after the fire insurance expired, we might never have left our northern mining town and found that bigger life I always dreamed of. Sure, there were a lot of hard times, but I’m grateful for all of it because it brought me to where I am today.

CLS: When did you start writing your memoir, were there some stops and starts along the way to the manuscript? You’ve been keeping journals since you were very young, so was it a matter of selectively, and forensically stitching together your journal entries, or was there therapy and/or other processes involved?

LT: I actually started the memoir when I was a creative writing student. I knew even then that my dad provided some pretty great material. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up! But after graduate school I moved to Paris, founded a language company as well as a charity, and I was so busy I gave up writing. It was only after my father died that I dug out my old chapters and began to write again. Along the way it became not just my father’s story, but mine too. 

I did try to use my journals, but I have tens of thousands of pages! The quantity was overwhelming. I consulted some parts for conversations and other details, but in the end I decided to focus on the stories that stood out in my memory.

CLS: My condolences on your father’s passing. You’re a second generation writer. Did you edit your dad’s books? How’s Brad, your brother? Has he read your book? If so, what does he think of it? Sometimes siblings from the same home have entirely different memories of the same childhoods played out under the same roof.

LT: I wish my father could have seen Dreamer’s Daughter in print. He would have loved that! As for me editing his books—no, I couldn’t. His books are kind of ribald. But I helped him self-publish them. As for my brother, who was gracious enough to let me put out a book about our childhood, our experiences couldn’t have been more different. His road to adulthood was straighter than mine was. Even though we didn’t always have a proper home, he has made a successful career as a builder of beautiful houses.

CLS: As a mother, what advice do you have for youth caught in an unhappy and unhealthy home life like yours was? Who do you wish had come to yours and Brad’s rescue at the time? 

LT: I hope my upbringing doesn’t come across as unhappy and unhealthy! It was neither.  Even though we were poor, and my father’s businesses were prone to disaster, and we moved a lot, my father was always there for us. Just as important is what he taught us: to be resourceful, to bounce back no matter what happened, and that we could be captains of our own ships.

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Cathalynn Cindy Labonté-Smith grew up in the Lethbridge and Cardston areas of Alberta and moved to Vancouver to complete a BFA in Creative Writing at UBC. She later taught English, Journalism, and other subjects at Vancouver high schools. She currently lives in Gibsons (and North Vancouver) where she founded the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society, including the annual Art & Words Festival, the Book Awards for BC Authors, and a literary map. Her previous book, Rescue Me: Behind the Scenes of Search and Rescue (Caitlin Press), was a bestseller in BC. She has a new book, I’m Not A Mormon (Anymore), to be released in Winter 2026, available for preorder from Caitlin Press or Amazon.ca. [Editor’s Note: Cathalynn Labonté-Smith recently wrote an essay on the subject of book awards, has recently reviewed books by Cathy Burrell, Sheila Anne Wray, Susan Aglukark, and Rob Fillo, and interviewed PP Wong and Bob McDonald for The British Columbia Review.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster

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1. Alan was born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario like Lori. His father was William Jeffrey, a stockbroker by profession, who divorced his mother, Joan (née) Greer in 1953. Alan hosted many game shows and is most known for his role of Dr. Jason Seaver, Psychologist on the TV show Growing Pains (1985-1992) with cast members including Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew Perry. He has a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame. He died of an aneurysm on December 13, 2016 at the age of sixty-nine, while playing hockey with his youngest son, Carter. He had his sons, Robin, a singer, and Brennan, with his first wife, Gloria Loring, of Days of Our Lives fame. He had a third son, Carter, with his second wife, Gina Tolleson (Miss World 1990). He was married to his third wife, Tanya Callau, model, from 2005 until his death. ↩︎