Dream State: Oprah's Book Club

A Novel

By: Eric Puchner

Narrated by: 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

Oprah steered me wrong

Normally I appreciate Oprah’s picks but guys, this was a stinker. I just kept waiting for it to end. Perhaps Oprah was trying to make a statement about the impending climate apocalypse. Do yourself a favor and skip it.

A lovely life story

I loved the personalities of Garrett, CC, and Lana, unique thinkers, otherworldly expressions of common philosophies, common everyday events, just a special way of looking at things and an ability to intelligently express themselves.

Great book

Like woman’s narrations better but the voice Wes good for this book just all around good book

God this was depressing

Some of the writing is lovely- the author really does capture the human condition, existential dread, the difficulty of finding purpose and meaning. But. The grim vision of the future - regardless of how likely it might be - was almost too hard to bear. Worth the time but you may be really blue.