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It's 1998, and Sylvie Patterson, a bookish student at a Northern California boarding school, falls in love with a spirited, elusive classmate named Gabe. Their headmaster, Dr. Adrian Keller, is a charismatic medical researcher who has staked his career on the therapeutic potential of lucid dreaming: By teaching his patients to become conscious during sleep, he helps them to relieve stress and heal from trauma. Over the next six years, Sylvie and Gabe become consumed by Keller's work, following him from the redwood forests of Eureka, California, to the enchanting New England coast.
But when an opportunity brings the trio to the Midwest, Sylvie and Gabe stumble into a tangled relationship with their mysterious neighbors - and Sylvie begins to doubt the ethics of Keller's research, recognizing the harm that can be wrought under the guise of progress. As she navigates the hazy, permeable boundaries between what is real and what isn't, who can be trusted and who cannot, Sylvie also faces surprising developments in herself: an unexpected infatuation, growing paranoia, and a new sense of rebellion.
In stirring, elegant prose, Benjamin's tale exposes the slippery nature of trust - and the immense power of our dreams.
"A sly, promising, and ambitious debut." - Publishers Weekly
"Astute readers will figure out what's going on long before Sylvie does, but the mounting tension and atmosphere of secrecy will definitely keep the pages of this taut psychological exploration turning right up until the tense, satisfying denouement" - Booklist
"Chloe Benjamin's ambitious debut novel matches the subtle surrealism of a dream with the underpinnings of a thriller. Back and forth in time like so many memories coming to light at once, Benjamin has produced a wholly original tale." - Emma Straub, author of Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures
"Sylvie's story drew me in from the first, and the subtle menace kept me turning pages to its surprising conclusion. Chloe Benjamin has crafted an eerie, compelling first novel which, like the lingering effects of a vivid dream, resonates long past its finish." - Karen Brown, author of The Longings of Wayward Girls
"Chloe Benjamin's impressive debut shimmers and surprises with its wonderfully original fusion of compelling quirk and surreal mystery." - Dean Bakopoulos, author of My American Unhappiness
This information about The Anatomy of Dreams was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: by Nathan Jandl
Chloe is a writer from San Francisco, CA. She is the author of The Immortalists, a New York Times bestseller, and The Anatomy of Dreams, which received the 2014 Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award. Chloe is a graduate of Vassar College and the M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Wisconsin. She lives with her husband in Madison, WI.
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