Biblioracle: Oprah and I agree that you should read ‘Dream State' by Eric Puchner

Chicago Tribune

01-03-2025

I'm a little miffed at Oprah right now.
I had a plan to be the first person to publicly proclaim Eric Puchner's new novel 'Dream State' as a great book that everyone should read. I noted the planned publication date (March 25) in my calendar and scheduled my work accordingly.
So, imagine my surprise when I saw Oprah on the CBS Morning News on Feb. 18 announcing that the next installment of her book club would be 'Dream State' by Eric Puchner.
Apparently, if you're Oprah and you're excited about a book you can get them to move the publication date up a month.
Anyway, Oprah and I agree that 'Dream State' is a novel you should read. I've long been a fan of Puchner's work, having recommended his first novel 'Model Home' (2010) to numerous readers in this space over the years. Puchner writes about families and relationships as well as any writer I can think of. The depth of engagement with his characters, along with the scope of the story spanning 50 years Puchner brings to 'Dream State' make for a powerful reading experience.
To demonstrate what kind of novel this is, the marketing copy gives away what seems like a major plot point right up front. Cece and Charlie are getting married at Charlie's beloved family vacation home in Salish, Montana. Cece, currently unemployed, is at the house, alone for a month before the wedding to make final arrangements while Charlie is busy as an anesthesiologist at a Los Angeles hospital.
Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, who lives in Salish and is working as an airport baggage handler following an (as yet) unrevealed life setback, to check in on Cece to make sure she isn't lonely. Garrett will also be officiating the wedding, a decision Cece cannot understand, given how strange and off-putting Garrett seems.
But Cece feels a strange and powerful connection to Garrett, while Garrett feels as though Cece may be the key that unlocks the rest of his life. When the moment comes for Cece to choose who she will spend the rest of her life with, she goes with Garrett.
Lesser novelists would build interest around the reveal, but Puchner is fascinated by the consequences, rather than the decisions themselves, and the consequences of Cece and Garrett's betrayal of Charlie are profound. If you really think about it, isn't all the drama of our lives to be found in the consequences? Why shouldn't that be the stuff of a compelling reading experience?
After nine years, the old friends try to reconnect, an act that brings not just the adults, but their children, Jasper (Charlie's son) and Lana (Garrett and Cece's daughter), into orbits that will continue for the rest of their lives.
I will not share more of the plot because seeing how Puchner braids the individual threads into a whole and moves these people through time is one of the chief pleasures of the novel. We check in with these characters at different moments when the price of previous decisions are coming due.
The looming atmosphere of a warming and burning planet changing the landscape these characters inhabit brings additional emotional urgency to the occasion.
We learn the truth of what derailed Garrett after college, and how Charlie coped (and didn't) with losing Cece. It is a novel about marriage and friendship and parenting and the way those acts overlap for these people who love — and also sometimes hate — each other.
Oprah knows her stuff, but remember, I was there first.
John Warner is the author of 'Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.'
Twitter @biblioracle
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read.
1. 'The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman' by Ernest J. Gaines
2. 'A Constellation of Vital Phenomena' by Anthony Marra
3. 'Fire Exit' by Morgan Talty
4. 'All-Night Pharmacy' by Ruth Madievsky
5. 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow' by Gabrielle Zevin
— Anne, S., Chicago
Sigrid Nunez's 'The Friend' looks like the right book for Anne.
1. 'The Splendid and The Vile' by Erik Larson
2. 'Demon Copperhead' by Barbara Kingsolver
3. 'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. 'Vincent and Theo' by Deborah Heiligman
5. 'The Celestine Prophecy' by James Redfield
— Laura P., Belvidere
For Laura, I'm recommending a novel with some history attached, 'The Good Lord Bird' by James McBride.
1. 'Tell Me Everything' by Elizabeth Strout
2. 'March' by Geraldine Brooks
3. 'The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook' by Hampton Sides
4. 'The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #19)' by Louise Penny
5. 'The History of Sound' by Ben Shattuck
— Jeff S., Highland Park
This novel doesn't precisely align with any of the books here, and yet the Biblioracle forces are calling on me to recommend it: 'Matrix' by Lauren Groff.