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Chuckanut Dreams is a sports and coming-of-age novel written by Martin J. Brown, and published by WaveCloud in 2018. Chuckanut Dreams is Brown's first novel.

Plot Summary
Jack McKenna, a rising star in the hockey community of British Columbia, Canada, decides to suddenly drop out of the Canadian junior league after the termination of his team. Continuing his education at McGill University, he meets Marbry, a young member of the affluent and traditional Catholic family, the Montreal Wellingtons. While falling in love with her, Jack is convinced by the transformation of his friend Bennett to use hockey as a means to transform the lives of juvenile delinquents, both in Canada in the United States, as a worker for the Department of Corrections. However, Jack’s plans are disrupted when he learns Marbry is pregnant. The two are quickly married, and they move to Bellingham, Washington, out of Canada. Jack and Marbry’s son is named Bennett, usually called Benn, in honor of Bennett, Jack’s beloved childhood best friend.

In an effort to propagate his dream, Jack visits an orphanage run by Father Ed MacDonald in Connecticut. While away from Marbry, she admitting to making investments without Jack’s knowledge, with her uncle, Trent Doertz, a director of an investment firm. This lack of communication proves to cause numerous fights between Jack and Marbry, as Marbry believes Jack irresponsible, and Jack believing her secretive and conniving. Later, Jack is summoned by his boss Ron Legion, who issues a directive requiring Jack to move to Vancouver, Washington to continue his work for the Department of Corrections. Discouraged by this lack of choice Jack, makes the decision to leave social services, instead going into business for Weyerhauser as a salesman. Shortly, Jack learns Marbry is again pregnant, and later, their second child, Agnes-Marie, is born.

Jack’s life is shaken enormously when his best friend, Bennett, is hit by a car and killed. This inspires Jack to honor Bennett’s memory by taking a job under Danny McDevitt as a salesman for Nike, selling hockey products. Months later, despite financial stability and Jack making monthly payments punctually, Jack learns that his house has been put into foreclosure, and angrily confronts Marbry about it, which ends in a display of violence by an enraged Jack upon learning Marbry had been silently siphoning money out of the mortgage for months. Inevitably, Marbry files for divorce against Jack, citing “irreconcilable differences.” Jack begins to turn to alcohol and drinking as a way of coping with the idea that Marbry had obtained full custody of Benn and Agnes-Marie, allowing only visitations on holidays, and that they were now living in Montreal.

Jack additionally turns to going to the local strip club, Muffins, as a source of relief. Becoming less concerned with his work, he loses his job as a Nike salesman, focusing more on drinking and going to Muffins. However, on a normal visit, “Daisy,” one of the dancers, is revealed to have drugged him and stolen credit card information while he was unconscious. Shortly after, Jack receives word from Montreal police that Benn has gone missing, and Marbry was not concerned and was doing nothing to help search. Later, Jack receives a call from Benn himself, that he had run away after being mistreated and neglected by Marbry, and that Trent Doertz’s divorcee, Helene Lemieux, was the only person supporting both Agnes-Marie and him. After their rescue from the Wellingtons in Montreal, Benn and Agnes-Marie return to living with their father. Unexpectedly, Jack receives an apologetic call from Marbry, where she expresses her sadness over her failure as a wife and mother. However, she abruptly ends the call, and it is revealed the next day that Marbry and her sister had been leaders of an elaborate identity theft ring for years, and they were about to be apprehended.

Following Marbry’s apprehension, after being temporarily released from custody so that she might say goodbye to her family, she drives off of a cliff on Highway 117, killing herself. The novel ends with Jack marrying Helene Lemieux, becoming the father to her kids who never had one.

Critical Reception
Chuckanut Dreams has recieved some reviews, with a generally favorable outlook on the storyline and some criticism of the writing style itself.