How the Dead Dream - by Lydia Millet (Paperback)

About the Book

The newest novel from critically acclaimed Lydia Millet, How the Dead Dream is a beautiful, heart-wrenching tale and a riveting commentary on community in the modern suburban landscape and how the lives of animals are affected by it.

Book Synopsis

As a wealthy, young real-estate developer in Los Angeles, T. lives an isolated life. He has always kept his distance from people -- from his doting mother to his crass fraternity brothers -- but remains unaware of his loneliness until one night, while driving to Las Vegas, he hits a coyote on the highway.

The experience unnerves him and inspires a transformation that leads T. to question his business pursuits for the first time in his life, to take a chance at falling in love, and finally to begin breaking into zoos across the country, where he finds solace in the presence of animals on the brink of extinction.

A beautiful, heart-wrenching tale, How the Dead Dream is also a riveting commentary on inidividualism and community in the modern social landscape and how the lives of people and animals are deeply entwined. Judged by many -- including the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post Book World -- to be Millet's best work to date, it is, as Time Out New York perfectly states: "This beautiful writer's most ambitious novel yet, a captivating balancing act between full-bodied satire and bighearted insight."

From the Back Cover

"[I] just read How the Dead Dream and was completely transported. Two months later it still occupies the spot of the best book I ve read since the last time I read a book so good." --Jonathan Lethem

As a wealthy, young real-estate developer in Los Angeles, T. lives an isolated life. He has always kept his distance from people from his doting mother to his crass fraternity brothers but remains unaware of his loneliness until one night, while driving to Las Vegas, he hits a coyote on the highway. The experience unnerveshim and inspires a spiritual transformation that leads T. to question his financial pursuits for the first time in his life, to finally take a chanceat fallingin love, and to begin sneaking into the local zoo, where he finds solace in the presence of endangered species. A beautiful, heart-wrenching tale, How the Dead Dreamis also a riveting commentary on community in the modern suburban landscape and how the lives of animals are affected by it. "The writing is always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself." Salon.com "How the Dead Dream is a quirky, discursive portrait of one man s evolving consciousness about success, love, kinship, and planetary responsibility.[A] provocative odyssey." Boston Sunday Globe

Lydia Millet is the author of five previous novels, most recently the acclaimed Oh Pure and Radiant Heart. The recipient of the PEN-USA Award for Fiction, she is an essayist and screenwriter as well as a novelist and lives with her husband, conservationist Kieran Suckling, and their daughter."