Dream State: Oprah's Book Club: A Novel

ISBN: 0385550669

Author: Puchner, Eric

Condition: New

2025 Oprahs Book Club PickNew York Times BestsellerFresh, wise, funny, and compassionateCinematic from the outset, Dream State opens (just as if a circular lens were unscrewing) upon a beloved old family homestead, site of a doomed wedding-descriptions so warm and attentive, a reader cant help falling in headfirsta wonderful feast, and feat.-The Boston GlobeA transporting wonderPuchners final chapter is one of the most touching and satisfying Ive read in years.-Ron Charles, The Washington PostDream State is a novel you should read Puchner writes about families and relationships as well as any writer I can think of a powerful reading experience.-Chicago Tribune"For a big, immersive American saga, deeply pleasurable yet tinged with melancholy, you could do no better than Dream State." -The Guardian's Best Fiction of 2025Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece cant imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task-an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlies shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garretts friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life shes dreamed of and a life shes never imagined.The events of that summer have long-lasting repercussions, not only on the three friends caught in its shadow but also on their children, who struggle to escape their parents story. Spanning fifty years and set against the backdrop of a rapidly warming Montana, Dream State explores what it means to live with the mistakes of the past-both our own and the ones weve inherited.Written with humor, precision, and enormous heart, both a love letter and an elegy to the American West, Dream State is a thrillingly ambitious ode to the power of friendship, the weird weather of marriage, and the beauty of impermanence.