Dream Sequence

by Adam Foulds

Henry Banks, a brilliant but narcissistic young actor, is prepared to go to any length for a role, to capitalise on his successes in television drama by securing the lead in the latest film by a celebrated Spanish director. He is on the brink of the next step – very close to achieving intellectual credibility and some serious celebrity.

However, Henry has – unwittingly – become an important part of the life of recently-divorced Kristin: someone who is also on the brink. Sitting in her beautiful, empty Philadelphia home, Kristin is obsessed with the handsome English actor and convinced they are destined to be together. She resolves to fly to London and bring their relationship to fruition.

Dream Sequence explores what it is to live at our current moment, with its porous borders between the inner and the outer life, and is a stunning, terrifying drama about psychological damage, stalking, and the perils of celebrity.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Literary Fiction, Novels, Contemporary

ebook

First published January 31, 2019

About the author

Adam Foulds (born 1974) is a British novelist and poet.

He was educated at Bancroft's School, read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford under Craig Raine, and graduated with an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in 2001. Foulds published The Truth About These Strange Times, a novel, in 2007. This won a Betty Trask Award. The novel, which is set in the present day, is concerned in part with the World Memory Championships, and earned him the title of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. The report of this in The Sunday Times included the information that he had previously worked as a fork-lift truck driver.

In 2008 Foulds published a substantial narrative poem entitled The Broken Word, described by the critic Peter Kemp as a "verse novella". It is a fictional version of some events during the Mau Mau Uprising. Writing in The Guardian, David Wheatley suggested that "The Broken Word is a moving and pitiless depiction of the world as it is rather than as we might like it to be, and the terrible things we do to defend our place in it". The book was short-listed for the 2008 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize[6] and won the poetry prize in the Costa Book Awards. In 2009 Foulds was again shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and won a Somerset Maugham Award.

In 2009 his novel The Quickening Maze was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Recommending the work in a 'books of the year' survey, acclaimed novellist Julian Barnes declared: 'Having last year greatly admired Adam Foulds's long poem The Broken Word, I uncharitably wondered whether his novel The Quickening Maze (Cape) might allow me to tacitly advise him to stick to verse. Some hope: this story of the Victorian lunatic asylum where the poet John Clare and Tennyson's brother Septimus were incarcerated is the real thing. It's not a "poetic novel" either, but a novelistic novel, rich in its understanding and representation of the mad, the sane, and that large overlapping category in between'.
On 7th January 2010 he was published on the Guardian Website's "Over by Over" (OBO) coverage of day five of the Third Test of the South Africa v England series at Newlands, Cape Town. Fould's published email corrected the OBO writer, Andy Bull, who, in the 77th over, posted lines by Donne in reference to Ian Ronald Bell in verse form:

"No doubt I won't be the first pedant to let you know that the Donne you quote is in fact from a prose meditation. The experiment in retrofitting twentieth century free verse technique to it is interesting but the line breaks shouldn't really be there."

--Wikipedia

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A recently divorced American woman meets a handsome British TV actor in an airport and is convinced it is fate and the beginning of a new life for her. The actor, outrageously self-centred, is about to audition for a film by one of the world's most esteemed directors. A part that will challenge his capabilities and transform his life.
We quickly learn Kirstin is deluding herself. The life-changing moment in the airport is a meaningless and forgotten moment in Henry's life who absently accepts any compliment from a member of the public as his due. There's a stunning episode in Qatar where he meets Virginia, one of many models hired to line corridors at a film festival like bollards. Meanwhile Kirstin is planning out the next encounter between her and Henry who she writes to twice a week. My only reservation was the ending. With only a few pages to go it could have ended in a variety of nuanced ways. But the ending he chose felt a little forced and overly dramatic. But a very beautifully written novel fizzing with sophisticated humour.

I'm puzzled why this has such a low rating. I can only think it's because lots of readers don't enjoy spending their time with unlikeable people and neither Henry nor Kirstin are people you'd want to sit next to on a plane or get stuck with in a lift. That said Virginia was one of the most likeable and fascinating characters I've met all year. I loved his writing so much I'm now starting another of his novels.

[Kelly (and the Book Boar) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

A better title for Dream Sequence might have been Much Ado About Nothing, but I think that one may have already been taken.

Kristin is a wealthy divorcee from Philadelphia who spends most of her time redecorating her home in the style she is accustomed to and writing correspondence a couple of times a week. Henry is a British actor who has starred in the hottest show on television for the past several years and is now looking to land an artier type of film role. They are both pretty smitten with the same person – and that person just so happens to be Henry.

I guess this was a literary version of a book about obsession???? I obviously wasn’t smart enough to get it. All I know is there were a lot of words and descriptions of things, places, feelings, etc. but pretty much nothing ever happened.

Let’s just be honest. This wasn’t a huge winner for me due to a couple of reasons . . . .



Ouch. No not that one. Well, not that one exclusively.

1. If a blurb leads me to believe I’ll be reading about a stalker, I pretty much want to be in the head of said stalker. Being introduced to Kristin only to have her go poof almost instantly and not reappear until the SIXTY-SECOND PERCENT mark was a bummer; and

2. There is never going to be a character so in love with himself or with such a desire to be famous and seen than Maurice in A Ladder to the Sky. This was just a case of bad timing and I apologize to Adam Foulds for not being able to fully appreciate whatever he was trying to offer up with Henry.

I really didn’t enjoy this at all, but am giving it 2 Stars rather than one because I truly believe there is an audience for this book. Sadly, I just don’t seem to be a part of it : (

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick read and at the end I’m not really sure what to make of it. It’s well written and lots of humorous bits and plenty of interesting observations about celebrity and obsession, and from that some people’s strange relationships with reality.
The main character, Henry Banks is a well known TV actor that is up for a part in a film by a trendy/cool Spanish director. He’s self obsessed and over confident yet at the same time insecure and not very likeable. Kristin is obsessed with him, totally delusional and after accidentally bumping into Henry at an airport thinks they are destined to be together.
The ending, although it’s foreshadowed, is a shock.
So I enjoyed the read but I’m not sure it made any deep impressions.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Henry Banks has spent the last six years in The Grange, a British TV series that we gather is something a bit like Downton Abbey. As he enters our story, he finds himself a front-runner for the lead role in the next Miguel Garcia movie. This is the kind of break aspiring actors pray for: Garcia makes art not just films and taking the lead in one of his productions would really put Henry on the map.

Meanwhile, and this is where the book actually opens, Kristin is recently divorced and now living on her own in Philadelphia. She has seen all the episodes of The Grange several times and, based on a brief accidental meeting at an airport, she believes Henry Banks is her soul-mate, even if he doesn’t know anything about it, and she writes to him twice a week declaring her love and planning their future together.

So, we have two people and both of them are obsessed with Henry Banks. A story is set in motion.

Well, sort of. This is my first Foulds novel and I have to say that it didn’t work for me. A lot of the reviews in the media praise the book for its acute observation and “psychological acuity”. And it is true that Foulds notices a lot. For my taste, he notices way too much and it starts to get in the way of the story. After we meet Kristin in the short opening chapter, we move to Henry and it is 125 pages (more than half the book) before we hear about Kristin again. Given that it is clear from the outset that the two of them are on a collision course, this felt to me far too long, far too much time spent telling a completely different story about Henry. It could have been fewer pages without all the detours for clever observations, but even then, it seems to be part of a different story about Henry than story that is set up in the opening chapter.

All that would be OK, I think (why not tell a couple of different stories - plenty of people have done similar things before?), if it weren’t for two other things. Firstly, I couldn’t get my head round Kristin and her actions: they are just the wrong side of believable. And secondly, the ending, when it comes, is like an emergency stop in a Formula 1 car. From 200mph to dead stop in about half a page.

So, with apologies to Adam Foulds, I have to acknowledge that this book just wasn’t for me. I can see that there is good writing here, but I couldn’t engage with either of the lead characters despite all the nice little turns of phrase. Add that to a rather implausible stalker and an ending that threatens to put you through the windscreen and I just couldn’t make it work.

My thanks to Vintage Publishing for a copy of this book via NetGalley. Unfortunately, it was in exchange for an “honest review” and this is my honest reaction to the book.

[Anni · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are tragi-comic elements to this familiar literary theme of obsession with an unattainable object of desire. The narration switches between the two main characters - one a narcissistic actor and the other, his disturbed and delusional female stalker, with fateful (and indeed fatal) consequences. Their unlikely intertwined destiny is marked with portentous synchronicity: a Spider-Man toy which echoes the actor’s upcoming movie role as a super hero, and the connection of the inevitable dramatic conclusion with his previous theatrical role as Hamlet. Though the plot may seem contrived in parts, with a few implausible coincidences, the writing makes up for it with Foulds’ exquisite observational descriptions and felicitous turns of phrase – of which I noted these gems, among many:

A character’s large, square-framed glasses described as being ‘in the style of no style’

A man's body being 'simplified inside the diagram of his suit’

‘All of adulthood was a thin covering, a cheap electroplating ...'

And check out this lyrical evocation of a cormorant by the canal –
‘drying it's laundry of wet green wings’.

… magical!

With many thanks to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) It’s impossible to forget the title as you’re reading this: a number of the scenes are deliberately strange and dreamlike as if to make you question what’s fantasy and what’s reality. Henry has to starve himself to play the lead role in the new Miguel García* film, a huge step up from his recent work in television. Soon his star is on the rise, with an appearance at a film festival in Qatar and a rumored role in the new Marvel movie. Kristin, who bumped into Henry at an airport two years ago and has been sending him biweekly fan mail ever since, has just gone through a divorce. She travels from Philadelphia to London to meet up with her hero when he plays Hamlet on the stage. But can he live up to the fantasy she’s built around him?

Keep an eye on words like “dream,” “fate,” “real” and “unreal.” This is an engrossing book about celebrity culture and what we can really know about people we mostly know digitally or have never met in person. In style it reminded me most of Adam Haslett’s work and Heather, the Totality. Although I think the book is probably not quite as clever as it wants to be, and Kristin’s character could have been more fleshed out and given more time, I read over 150 pages of this in a day, so that tells you how quickly the pages turn.

*A fictional director who seems to be a cross between Guillermo del Toro and Lars von Trier.

[SueKich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vanity meets delusion.

Henry Banks is a successful and blindingly handsome television star hoping to land the lead in a prestigious film by a celebrated Spanish director. Across the Atlantic, lonely divorcée Kirstin has become obsessed with Henry’s British TV show and having briefly encountered him once at an airport, she believes the two of them are destined for one another.

In a tightly written novel that comes in at just over two hundred pages, Adam Foulds gives us two closely observed character studies that to me were entirely convincing. Like many actors, Henry is nowhere near as confident as he makes out. He desperately wants to be taken seriously as an actor yet when the big bucks beckon, he has no compunction about following the money. Women take one look at him and fall straight into his bed. Only his parents fail to fall for his charms. (No prizes for guessing the root of his insecurities then.)

Foulds is equally adept at getting inside the head of a deluded woman whose confusion between celebrity and an imaginary ‘fated’ connection has the potential to lead to terrible consequences. I found this aspect of the book one of the most satisfying as something that could have been treated in a clichéd thriller-chiller way is here handled with subtlety and insight.

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I requested this because, you know, Adam Foulds, but I wasn't expecting to like it nearly as much as I did. It's the story of two people: one, Henry, is an up-and-coming actor who's about to break out of the TV period drama circuit with a starring role in a film by a major director; the other, Kirstin, is an American divorcée who bumped into him at an airport a year ago, and who has since been consumed by the delusion that they are meant to be together. It's not anything like the last Foulds novel I read (The Quickening Maze, about the institutionalization of the poet John Clare in the same asylum as Tennyson's brother Septimus). Foulds is exceptionally talented at putting us inside Henry's and Kirstin's heads; his insights into the acting industry, particularly into the world of cinema and celebrity, auditioning and waiting to hear back, are brilliant and convincing. Henry's permanent semi-conscious awareness of his body—hunger, muscle, fasting, lightness, the unusually beautiful structure of the bones of his face—is especially well rendered. In the sections involving Kirstin, meanwhile, Foulds climbs into her head such that we not only see her madness, but understand it, intimately; her divorce has cost her a young stepson and the loss of his small, innocent love is something that she keeps coming back to, a hole in her heart that her obsession with Henry cannot fill. The story clearly can't end well, but Foulds shows tremendous restraint right up to the finish line. Dream Sequence is very good, and very hard to pigeonhole.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dream Sequence is ostensibly a story about a woman who becomes obsessed with an actor and a book about "psychological damage, stalking, and the perils of celebrity" (quote taken from the blurb). But what it is actually about it something quite different - it's more of a portrait of a boring and self absorbed actor, and 60 something percent in to the book the woman (Kristin) actually becomes part of the narrative before the rushed ending falls flat. It was just really hard to believe in the motivations of any of the characters or care about what happened to any of them.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House UK/Vintage Publishing for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a bit ambivalent this book. It has good things about it but in the end I didn’t think it amounted to much.

Dream Sequence is the story (although the description “story” might be pushing it a bit) of Henry, a successful English TV actor hoping to be about to make it big in films and Kristin, a comfortably wealthy, drifting divorcée in the USA who once exchanged a word or two with Henry in passing at an airport and has now become obsessed with him, believing their love to be decreed by fate. We get separate accounts of their lives for the great bulk of the book as Henry goes about the business of being an actor and Kristin sets out for London to try to meet him.

Depending on your point of view it’s either full of beautifully observed detail which brings rich pictures of the characters, or a great deal of Fine Writing for its own sake which doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. I’m in the second camp, I’m afraid; to me, it seemed an awful lot of very little, exquisitely described. It was good enough to finish and things do take an unsettling turn right at the end, but I don’t really feel any better off for having read it. Adam Foulds does write beautifully much of the time, but even that gives way to a mannered style in places. He does like to hammer us with staccato nouns and adjectives; for example, I found these two sequential sentences a bit much: “He needed change, music, air. The flat was modern, built in the nineties, clean, spare, hard.” And then a couple of pages later (of Docklands), “Its appearance was anonymous, modular, global, financial.” Enough, already!

To be fair, much of it is perfectly readable; it’s just that I kept wondering why I was bothering to read it. Others may disagree, but for me this has far more style than style than substance (and the cynic in me is therefore rather expecting it to be nominated for the Booker Prize). Personally, I can’t really recommend it.

(My thanks to Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.)

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the days he haunted the empty building. He felt like a hallucination, a collective delusion the people in the other flats were having, a daydream while they sat at their desks or in meetings. That was what he was, he realized in a spate of rapid thoughts, standing in the middle of the room with his head full of Mike's lines, that was his task, to be the dream of other people.

Dream Sequence is a short and languorous read, with more power in the small observations and short passages than in the overall plotline, and had it not been longlisted for the Giller Prize, I would probably not have heard of it. As it is, I'm not unhappy to have read it, but I can't say that this was an essential experience. (On a peevish side note: Just because British author Adam Foulds now lives in Toronto, I'm not satisfied that that is enough to qualify this US- and UK-set book for my favourite Canadian literary prize.)

In the beginning we meet Kristin: A recently divorced American woman who is well provided for financially, but perhaps a bit emotionally unbalanced. We soon learn that she is obsessed with a British TV drama (along the lines of Downton Abbey), and in particular, obsessed with one of its stars; an actor Kristin once ran into in an airport and with whom she believes to be soulmates. Writing letters to this Henry twice a week in care of his agent, Kristin can't imagine the reaction her beloved would have after accidentally being forwarded one of her missives:

This letter did not strike him as endearing or amusing. It was typical of quite a few he'd read in the past. Unsettling, uncanny, full of private madness and incantation and belonging to a live person who was out there right now, thinking about him, who thought she had met him, scrawling his name on pages, on the sand of a beach somewhere, and feeling a compulsion in the world that was about them, about his fate. It was nonsense and harmless, presumably, but so much better not to know, not to have this inside him. It should never have reached him.

After a brief introduction to Kristin, POV is turned over to Henry and his self-obsession: Having just wrapped up the final season of The Grange, Henry is desperate to land the lead in a famed auteur's new artistic film; the sort of thing that would get screened at Cannes and could launch his career as a serious actor. We follow Henry as he attends a film festival in Qatar, and through a series of short scenes, Foulds does an admirable job of displaying the insecurities, egotism, and out-of-touchedness of his celebrity lifestyle. The title “Dream Sequence” could refer to Henry's fairytale life (and the detachment he feels from the real lives of others, as in the opening passage), but it also points to Kristin's recounted dreams, more real to her than her actual life:

Kristin took hold of Henry's forearm to steady him. He was grateful, relieved, as if she'd saved him from drowning. They stood closer together in a turning column of light. He was so near. Kristin wanted so desperately to kiss him that she strained to close the final distance, pushing her face across the fabric of her pillow, her lips parting, her eyes opening.

Two-thirds of the way through the book, Kristin reappears in the narrative and it becomes clear that these two characters must eventually meet and achieve some sort of resolution. I was and wasn't satisfied with how this played out.

There are many chiming details between the Kristin and Henry characters (she treasures a Spiderman toy her former stepson gave to her, he waits to hear about a Marvel movie role; she goes to a yoga class, we follow him to a similar guided meditation class; neither of them can please their parents, if Henry plays Hamlet, I suppose it's fated that Kristin must be Ophelia) and the narrative feels precise and well-observed and technically astute. But it doesn't have a lot of heart, and with characters who are so detached from real life, I was left a bit cold in the end.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Why is this on the Giller longlist? (Earlier this week I puzzled over the absence of a certain Canadian novel on this list, and now after finishing Dream Sequence I'm baffled as to how this one made it through but not the other?)

Yesterday, while reading Dream Sequence, I went to the Giller site to see how they explained what the Prize stood for, because I was questioning its inclusion on this year's longlist. Does the Giller site say its the celebration of Canadian literature? Or is it the celebration of Canadian authors? (I find there can be a difference here - because there are a few of the books on the longlist that are not Canadian in their stories, but it's that they are Canadian authors. Know what I'm trying to get at?)

On the Giller site under their About section it states, " The award recognized excellence in Canadian fiction...

So, I'm therefore now puzzled on the inclusion of this one, as I did purposely read it through the lens as being longlisted for the Giller. I also only read it because of its nomination. Sure it's a quick read, but I didn't feel it particularly literary, or prize-worthy? Especially given the scope of excellent Canadian fiction during the nomination period. Sure it takes a good look at obsession, or the differences in what might be considered healthy vs non-healthy obsessive behaviours? But overall, I couldn't find the overall point to it? Disappointed to see this one on the list and I hope to not see it on the shortlist.

I'm way ahead of the game this year for reading the longlist. So far I've read:
Reproduction
Dual Citizens
The Innocents
Lampedusa
and now, Dream Sequence

The others I'm planning on reading:
Greenwood
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club
Late Breaking

I might try to read Days by Moonlight and Immigrant City. It may depend on what is on the shortlist.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A stalker novel with a difference?

Henry Banks is a young British actor trying to break into the big time. He has starred in a six-year TV series and is a recognizable face. Now, he is auditioning with Spanish director Miguel Garcia, a Scorsese-like legend every actor wants to associate with because stardom thereafter is guaranteed. Kristin, a troubled American divorcee, who met Henry outside a washroom in an airport and did a heart and brain flip, is his stalker.

But after this nice set-up, the novel takes off in a different direction. We follow Henry as he lives a solitary, self-absorbed life between acting gigs, amusing himself with one-night stands, drinks with acting peers, porn and masturbation when female company dries up. We follow him to Qatar to attend a film festival, where he is contracted to be the cultural entertainment. We get to sample the interiors of hotels and private tours of the Gulf state. Henry picks up a model, Virginia, who appears to be a hired along with a coterie of “girls” to spice up the party by the Arab sponsors. Henry and his actor cohort do not look kindly upon their Arab hosts, who have dry (alcohol-free) public events and film screenings, and private “wet parties” that include heroin. I am not sure this book will be welcome in the Arab Gulf States for its candid “lifting of the kantura,” as it were, and for the snarky comments from Henry & Co. unless the likes of Al Jazira have indeed raised the Qataris to look frankly upon themselves.

We get a parallel tour when Kristin comes to the UK to pursue Henry: her transatlantic flight, the hotel in London, the museum visits – it was as if the author, for lack of content, had pulled out his travel diary of a similar trip taken to these destinations and was laying it on thick. The marked absence of conflict until the last few pages was as apparent as Henry’s boredom with his non-life.

Kristin is not your Glen Close from Fatal Attraction. She is rather grounded and yet flirts with the hair-brained notion that she and Henry are soul mates. To him, she is just another one night stand, picked up at an inconvenient time when his libido overruled his judgment. The fallout from this crossing of stars, or star-crossed lovers is the outcome of the book.

One thing the author does well is to reduce film stars to a very human dimension – they reek of sweat, battle with indecision, worry about their self-image, starve to stay trim, shoot up when the pressure gets too much, hunt for pussy like animals in heat, and are not very deep thinkers. And their egos have no bounds. Had Kristin realized that of Henry when she first met him, she could have saved the money from her transatlantic trip and perhaps gone to the Caribbean, and picked up a more satisfying sexual partner with no strings attached.

[Justin Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

A slice-of-life narrative about two individuals who long for an idealized future, the next best thing, without ever truly live the present.

At a 3.02 average score, Dream Sequence is currently the lowest rated book I've read; however I ended up thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, there is only the slightest resemblance of a 'plot', but the objective here is really about becoming intimate with the protagonists, and through their unique (aka flawed) moral and outlook, experience our world with new lens.

The book is evenly divided between its two protagonists, an up-and-coming British actor Henry Banks, and the recently divorced American female, Kristin. Due to Henry's occupation, his narrative is by far the more nuanced and layered one; his character traverses a diverse range of scenarios (audition, premiere, on set, etc.), and we the reader get to witness his emotional trajectory, from his impostor syndrome, envy, desperation, to his tepid attitude on relationship of all kind. As an aside, while irrelevant to the core story, it is evident Adam Foulds modeled Henry Banks after currently-active actor (Michael Fassbender came to mind), which I think further assists readers to mentally materialize this character.

In contrast, the character Kristin remains as an enigma throughout; while I understand the intention, instead of the dual-protagonist setup, the book would've been stronger devoting solely on Henry, with Kristin as a secondary character.

Dream Sequence is beautifully written, has one engrossing character, and a potent sense of modern melancholy. I can see myself revisiting this from time to time, perhaps not as another full read through, but like dreaming, indulge in snippets.

[b · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt almost entirely self-indulgent with descriptions of female characters that almost had me laughing in their absurdity. Contrary to other reviews, I found the main character, Henry, rather likeable (though admittedly that might be because my brain conjured him as Henry Golding), But the author spent so little time with Kristin that she seemed like an afterthought, and because of that, gave the ending absolutely zero chance of leaving a major impact—which is a shame because this book could have made a strong statement on obsession and media in today’s society.

There were certainly poetic descriptions and a few moving passages, as is expected from a poet, but overall the narrative was stilted and under-developed and the characters were in large part just common caricatures. This is the kinda book that keeps people away from literary fiction, I’m afraid.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave this book 2 stars instead of 1 star because I actually finished it. This is the story of two unlikable people who meet each other, one famous, the other not. He is a self-centered actor with a huge ego and she is just plain nuts. I kept reading to see if something would actually happen that was interesting. No. Never did. At the end, I didn't really care what happened with their relationship. Glad I was able to breeze through it.

[Martyn Sanderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

so bad? like, so so bad.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Adam Foulds seems to be a well regarded writer. I don't know why. I recently read another book about celebrity and obsessive fans, Yukio Mishima's "Star," which was 10,000 times better than this. There are no new insights here into stardom or stalkers. The characters are all vacant people. The story and ending are predictable. The verbal expression is ordinary. I just didn't care. I only finished it because it was short, and I was pulled along by the promise of getting to the end quickly.

[Kath · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book delivers a glimpse into two lives that are worlds apart but which come together with, let's just say, an interesting conclusion.
Henry is an actor. When we first meet him he is desperate to land the lead what is billed as the next blockbuster film, having recently finished in a major tv drama. We are also introduced to Kristin who is a bit obsessed with Henry. Writing to him constantly and following him avidly on the internet and social media. She deludes herself that they are destined to be together and spots an opportunity when Henry is to appear on stage. So she ups and leaves her Philadelphia home and travels to London in order to realise her dreams.
This book was a little (lot) different to what I usual read. That said, I do like character driven books and you can't get much character driven that this one! Not that I actually liked many of the characters depicted in this story. Henry came across as rather entitled but also secretly insecure. But he didn't seem to have that air of vulnerability which would have endeared him to me more. Kristin was pretty much just bonkers in her celebrity stalking, but whether that was cause or effect of the way her life had turned out, I'm not too sure. Her descent is, at times, hard to watch as she becomes more and more determined to meet Henry but it was well planned and executed by the author. Henry's journey to the conclusion was a bit more colourful and really enhanced him as a character, albeit it more negatively than positively for me.
I like to feel satisfied when I conclude a book and I guess I was with this one. I was also shocked and a bit numb to be honest which did leave me a bit uncomfortable. But I guess that's probably the point the author was trying to make.
This is my first Adam Foulds book and, even though his style wasn't quite what I am used to, I did enjoy the journey he took his characters. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

[Chiara B (casadinchiostro) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Non ho altro da dire se non che fa un po’ innervosire quando fanno passare i libri per qualcosa di diverso da come realmente sono.
Mi aspettavo molto di più dal punto di vista di Kristin, ossia il personaggio dalla psicologia più interessante e che avrebbe dovuto far muovere un romanzo alla fine rilevatosi senza trama, proprio a causa di questa mancanza.
Il finale mi è parso buttato a caso sperando di creare un colpo di scena che su di me non ha per nulla funzionato.
Non mi ha lasciato niente.

[Shan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read because it was longlisted for the Giller Prize.

Every year I read the Giller longlist and every year there is one book on there that gives me a huge surprise, a book I never would have read had it not been for the list and that I absolutely loved and recommend to everyone. As I began this book I thought, this is that book for 2019. Now that I've finished it I'm not so sure. I got stuck in right away and actually ended up reading this book in just two sittings. It's easy to become absorbed in and given the description you want to keep reading to find out what happens between Henry and Kristin. But when it all does, it fell flat for me. It just happened too quick and was rather anti-climactic. What I realize is that the book is more of a character study than about the thriller like plot given on the book jacket and I guess that's why it ended up being a middle of the road read for me.

[Alan M · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Henry. Henry was everywhere and nowhere, shaping everything. He was the key signature in which the music of her life was played.’

Adam Foulds’ new novel is a short (coming in at a little over 200 pages) meditation on the nature of celebrity-obsession. Henry Banks is an actor on the way up: having spent years in a successful TV period drama The Grange (I think we all know what this is an allusion to!), given the lead in a new movie by famed director Miguel Garcia, star of a west End run of Hamlet…. He has it all, and is dashingly good-looking to boot. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Kristin is newly divorced, alone, left clinging on to a Superman toy left by one of her stepsons so she wouldn’t feel lonely (again, Foulds has a delicate touch, as this subtly references later when Henry is up for a role in a Marvel superhero franchise). Kristin obsessively recalls a chance meeting with Henry in an airport the year before, and resolves to go to London to meet him again, convinced it is their destiny to be together.

Foulds sets the scene with deft touches: both characters are introduced as they set out one morning, their routines and habits subtly mirroring each other, post arriving, things to do. Their houses suggest their characters too: Kristin’s is ornately decorated, full of colour, while Henry’s Dockside apartment is all bare floors and white walls. The book switches between the 2 main characters as we get inside their heads: Henry is anxious, self-obsessed, insecure, fond of parties, drugs and one-night stands, while Kristin is unemployed, filling her days with yoga and dreaming of Henry. As the two stories start to come together the sense of the inevitable hangs over the book. Without giving away any spoilers, let’s just say it ends with an understated sense of drama and melancholy.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and Foulds is a wonderful writer, able to capture a mood or a description with a poet’s compactness. I found the book hovering somewhere between a tragedy and a satire; the mood is often comic (Henry’s parents are a hoot, and his father’s put downs made me laugh out loud at times). Although we are in well-trodden territory there was enough to keep the book fresh and moving along: the fish-out-of-water set piece where Henry attends a film premiere in Qatar; the ‘zoo’ of the celebrity circuit, where normality is some hyper-extension of what us mere mortals experience; the mild-mannered stalker who seemingly has no idea of just how creepy they are… Some of Foulds’ descriptions are wonderful, especially of London itself: ‘London’s surplus of faces, of human versions, every permutation, all preoccupied, unconscious, milling towards something’.

Perhaps the characters were a little too shallow (did we really learn that much about Kristin?) but I found this an interesting take on the stalker theme, with Henry being almost as self-obsessed as Kristin. The sense of fate and destiny, of playing a role, are also crucial – as is the play Hamlet which, for those familiar with it, takes on an extra level of meaning as the novel ends…. Overall, this was a pleasure to read, and Foulds’ control of the English language is a joy to behold. I definitely recommend this.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of the book.)

[Anne Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds is a little gem of a novel. Short, beautifully written, engaging characters and an exciting ending; what else could a reader ask for? There are two main characters; Kristin is an attractive young woman who’s just gotten a divorce from a wealthy man, previously her boss (insert eyebrow raise here), and Henry Banks is a famous UK actor, desperate to break into film as his current resume includes successfully television appearances only. Within the first few pages we learn Kristin is obsessed with Henry, convinced they are destined to be together after they briefly met in an airport once (insert eyebrow raise here).

Reading books about fictional celebrities is a special kind of fun. You get the embarrassing pleasure of reading about fame, riches and popularity without the self-loathing that comes along with a copy of US Weekly. Henry is the cliched actor; he starves himself on the regular, he loves being recognized but acts like he doesn’t, makes sleeping with models a regular hobby of his, and is generally narcissistic to the core. We focus on him more than Kristin, which is a courtesy to the reader because he visits exotic film festivals and generally leads a fuller life compared to her (which to be fair, still doesn’t seem all that full). We only sit in Kristin’s shoes for a short time, but it’s boring as hell when we do; she goes to yoga class and debates the interior of whatever room she happens to be sitting in.

In only 180ish pages, we experience what it’s like to be famous, and what it’s like to be obsessed with someone famous. Although neither character is likeable, or even remotely relatable, I was completely invested in their story. Will they meet again? Will Kristin realize what a jerk Henry is? Will Henry get this fabulous new role he’s pining after? I think the title refers to the dream-like state we follow these characters in, and since the book is so short, it ends before we feel like it becomes unrealistic or simply too dreamy.

I spoke to someone else who had read this as well and they didn’t like the ending. I liked it myself, but I did find it quite…dramatic. And despite the unique circumstances of both Kristen and Henry, the rest of the book is anything but dramatic, it deals in the mundane and undocumented parts of our lives. So some may find the ending abrupt, or too big of a shift from the established tone leading up to it, but as many dreams can, the ending will leave an impression simply because it does seem like such a departure. Regardless, I loved this book, and because of its accessible length and subject matter, I hope people reach for it this summer.

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[John Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some of the reviewers of this book are disappointed that not much happens. It looks like the book as a story about a stalker. I just grabbed it off the shelf at my library without knowing anything about it.

I enjoy well-written stories about people and how they go about their lives and this book does a great job of telling us about a rising actor and the things he does to get through the day and to rise in his profession. He's really a fairly normal guy with parents who are a bit annoying but that he loves. Of course, he's a jerk some of the times but most people are.

Don't expect a nail-biting mystery. It's just an extremely well-written and interesting story of one person's life. For me, that's plenty.

[Alyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the swift pace and that I really wanted to find out how this was going to play out. I liked the foreshadowing with the dog. I liked that I supposed that these characters / this situation was mostly believable, and that I did not care if I really liked any of them at all. I liked the settings. I really didn't like that I found grammatical errors in the text that an editor should have caught and corrected. And that there was more than one mistake at that. The ending left me feeling a little bit empty but overall, Dream Sequence was a good, quick read.

[Patrick Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent little character study but I’m sure Foulds can do better!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished the book in one sitting, because I really like the way it's written. The story is alright :)

[Melanie Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite, limpid prose and exceptional characterizations made this an engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable read. I loathe spoilers so don't want to discuss the plot itself, other than to say it's a celebrity-stalking gone wrong (although has there ever been one that's gone well?). As the lovestruck delusion plays out to its fatal conclusion we are given privileged back-of-the-eyes access to both the stalker and her unsuspecting beloved. Phrase by perfect phrase, sentence by limpid sentence Mr Foulds expertly invites us into greater intimacy with this star-crossed pair until we understand both them so well that, when their paths intersect for the second time we already know they (we?) are heading for disaster. By the third time, we can do nothing but look on, helplessly, as the victim, failing to spot who and what he is dealing with, carelessly ratchets the stakes up for himself. By their fourth meeting, I was busy trying to work out how to read from behind the sofa with my hands over my eyes. When the end finally came, I initially found it rather abrupt. But on reflection, I now feel the shock I was left with mirrors the shock all concerned would have felt when it happened. (I nearly said 'must have felt' when it happened, for such is how vivid these characters still seem.)

With thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for letting me see an advance copy of Dream Sequence in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Jasmin Frelih · Rating 4 out of 5]

I met Adam in the lobby of a hotel in the Ginza district of Tokyo - we were there for the European Literature Festival, extended into a week-long literary residency in Okinawa (a dream sequence all by itself) - and we spent the day walking around Tokyo together, visiting the Sensoji temple in the Asakusa district.

According to the legend, two brothers fished a statue of the goddess of mercy out of the Sumida river, and even though they put it back, it kept returning to them. So they built a temple in her honor.

I'm not sure if Adam was aware of the legend, but it fits nicely with the book. He is very kind to his characters, despite their vanities, self-pity, self-absorptions, self-deceptions, ambitions and obsessions. To tell their story with kindness, with such clarity and precision, lacking both cynicism and judgment, is to show them mercy.

I wonder what he would think of the interpretation that Kristin is Kannon to Henry, returning from the river until he accepts her blessing. I'll be sure to ask him, the next dream we meet.

[Marisa Turpin · Rating 3 out of 5]

WHAT did I just read? I started off liking this book and being quite interested in where it might be going. The book starts of with Kristen's POV. She is fairly recently divorced from her much older (ex)husband who happened to be her boss (and married to another woman at the time she met him). He has [of course] left her for an updated/younger version. She has become obsessed with an up and coming actor named Henry who was on a British soap opera. The book then focuses on Henry for the next 3/4 of the book, and ends with a little more from Kristen. Neither character was likable. Both were quite narcissistic. I grew really bored of reading about how little Henry was eating (in order to play the role in a major movie role). He was so insecure for someone so famous, but perhaps that is the reality when you're in the spotlight --- that you rely on others to tell you how great you are. Truly, this book made me feel a bit like I was the one dreaming at times because it had a surreal quality to it. I felt like after all that long, slow buildup, it ended abruptly. AND, I am not so sure that I understood the ending, but it appears that Kristen died (or did she also drag Henry down in the water with her?).