Dream Sequence
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Adam Foulds, the award-winning author of The Quickening Maze, pens a stunning and terrifying vision of the damage done between a fan and a celebrity in Dream Sequence—where the borders between inner and outer life have been made porous in a world full of flickering screens large and small.
Henry became famous starring in The Grange, a television drama beloved by mothers and wives, and whose fans speak about the characters as though they were real people . . . yet Henry dreams of escaping the small screen. An audition for a movie directed by a highly respected Spanish auteur holds the promise of a way forward. Whether holed up in his apartment eating monkish meals of rice and steamed vegetables or snorting cocaine at desert parties in Doha, Henry’s awareness of his own image, of his relative place in the world, is acute and constant.
But Henry has also—unwittingly—become an important part of the life of recently divorced Kristin. He appears repeatedly on the television in her beautiful, empty Philadelphia house, and her social media feeds bring news of his London home, his family. What Kristin wants is simply to get as close to him in real life as she has in her fandom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from Foulds (In the Wolf's Mouth) is an outstanding and unyielding exploration of celebrity, fame, and all its attendant obsessions. Kristin is recently divorced and living alone in the Philadelphia home she once shared with her ex-husband, who's since moved on to his third marriage. The one thing that gives her joy in "her new, ruined life" is the British TV show The Grange and its irrepressibly handsome star Henry Banks. In London, Henry has no idea Kristin exists and is eager to move on from the small screen. Between starving himself into the kind of ugliness necessary for the lead role in an acclaimed Spanish director's new movie and partying with models and rich heirs in Qatar, Henry's star is rising and he is about to launch into the highest stratosphere of fame. Kristin's infatuation with Henry, meanwhile, becomes an obsession, and she boards a flight to London to try to get as close to him as she can. When Kristin and Henry's paths cross, to devastating effect, Kristin must contend with the dissonance between the reality of Henry and her fantasies of him. Foulds's novel is fun, smart, and tense, part psychological drama about media-driven obsession and part razor-sharp social critique.
