Instant New York Times Bestseller
Oprah's Book Club Pick
"Indie Next Pick" for March
Hear Doctor Baker's original
song inspired by the novel:
“This story of relationships built and broken, mistakes inherited and repeated and the beauty of trying again is already one of the year’s best.”
– People (Book of the Week)
“A transporting wonder… monumental…Puchner’s manipulation of time is among his novel’s most magical elements…While exercising full control across the whole arc of the book, he also manages to create strikingly beautiful chapters…petals of insight fall gently on every page of this deeply humane novel…Puchner’s final chapter is one of the most touching and satisfying I’ve read in years.”
- Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Pretty sure it's a great American novel."
- Curtis Sittenfeld, Elle.com
"A great book that everyone should read…Puchner writes about families and relationships as well as any writer I can think of…a powerful reading experience."
- John Warner, Chicago Tribune
"A thoughtful meditation on the seismic impact of small decisions on human and earthly conditions. It couldn’t be more timely."
- Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times (Book of the Week)
"Fresh, wise, funny, and compassionate…So many delicious lines float forward, a reviewer is overwhelmed…real tenderness and wit saturate every page…Dream State is a wonderful feast, and feat."
- Joan Frank, Boston Globe
"Expansive…explores how we might make meaning of our existence in the face of escalating loss."
- The New Yorker
"The writing is beautiful; this is one of those books to sink into and relish every word."
- Good Housekeeping (UK)
"One of those big family novels you just want to fall into…With humor and heartbreak, this sweeping saga explores the way choices - big and small - shape lives and families for decades."
- "The Book Report," CBS News Sunday Morning
“A shimmering Montana saga....A coming-of-old-age story, beginning after the traditional bildungsroman would end and running to the final chapter of life.”
- The New York Times Book Review
"Masterfully built."
- Financial Times
"Beautifully crafted set pieces…Puchner has, as the saying goes, a way with words…blade-sharp descriptions, observations, and dialogue…draws the reader along in an insightful and very funny manner."
- Popmatters
"A moving, psychologically acute, formally surprising family saga…a novel that feels both old-fashioned and bracingly inventive."
- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A gorgeous, gripping epic…being hailed by some as the next great American novel."
– BBC ("40 of The Most Exciting Books to Read in 2025")
"A brilliant, sprawling epic as funny as it is devastating…I haven’t been this dazzled by a novel in a long time."
- Literary Hub ("Most Anticipated Books of 2025")
"A packed saga of the very best kind…Puchner excels at both the big picture and the small details…Don't miss Dream State." - BookPage (starred review)
"Luminous…filled with sentences that demand to be reread for their sheer beauty…a profound, haunting exploration of love…Eric Puchner has once again proven himself a master of quiet, devastating storytelling."
- The Bookish Elf
"Fans of old-fashioned, multilayered storytelling at its finest will savor Dream State…[a] marvelous work."
- Shelf Awareness
"Riveting…a deeply felt exploration of relationships and self-identity, and the imperfections hidden by the heart’s pull."
- Booklist (starred review)
"Dream State is a masterpiece. A glittering, evocative achievement. I thought about the ending for days.”
- Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son
"Filled to the brim with life. Dream State is a wonder of character and craft."
- Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost
"Dream State is a delight…An exquisitely rendered novel about the vagaries of fate, and friendship, and love."
- Alice McDermott, National Book Award winner and author of Absolution
"Deeply affecting…characters so complicated and sympathetic that we want - we need - to know how their lives will turn out."
- Francine Prose, author of Mister Monkey
"A gorgeous exploration of time, grief, love, and the way that the commitments we make turn us into the people we become…brilliant."
- Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections
"Everything I want in a novel…This is an absolute masterpiece.”
- Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple and Swan Song
“Formally exhilarating…Here is some of the most beautiful writing that I have ever read.”
- Matthew Klam, author of Who Is Rich?
"Lush, immersive, devastating, and stunningly alive."
- Lynn Steger Strong, author of The Float Test
"A remarkable achievement…Eric Puchner writes with a marvelous buoyancy and precision."
- Andrew Motion, UK Poet Laureate 1999-2009
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In addition to Dream State, Eric Puchner is the author of the novel Model Home, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of a California Book Award, and two collections of short stories, Last Day on Earth and Music Through the Floor, a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. His fiction and personal essays have appeared in GQ, Granta, McSweeney’s, Tin House, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and The Best American Short Stories 2012 and 2017. He has received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. An associate professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, he lives in Baltimore with his wife, the novelist Katharine Noel, and their two children.
Photograph by Ariana Mygatt
REVIEWS FOR MODEL HOME
"Puchner is a tender, humane observer of family life…affecting."
New York Times Book Review