Dream State: Oprah's Book Club

A Novel

De: Eric Puchner

Narrado por: MacLeod Andrews

2025 Oprah’s Book Club Pick

New York Times Bestseller

“Fresh, wise, funny, and compassionate…Cinematic 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 can’t help falling in headfirst…a wonderful feast, and feat.”
—The Boston Globe

“A transporting wonder…Puchner’s final chapter is one of the most touching and satisfying I’ve read in years.”
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“Dream 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 2025

Cece 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 can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task—an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie’s 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 Garrett’s friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s 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 we’ve 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.

The authenticity

The intimate descriptions of life events that reminded me of moments I had forgotten or feared to remember

Didn’t want it to end

I wanted to learn more about every character in this book and wish it expanded in each season in depth just a bit longer.

Excellent novel. Definitely worth a listen.

Truly depressing!

I truly did not get this book and found it very depressing by the time I got to the end. If the meeting was life sucks, then I got it. The story was all over the place and didn’t even seem to make sense at times.

Love and Regret

Very pertinent to today’s challenges related to family dynamics and the environment. I appreciate the research involved in writing this book.

It’s a great story- he touched on so many facets of life.

The author for sure researched carefully and thoroughly which I appreciated as there were many important topics.