Book Summary and Reviews of Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds

Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds

Dream Sequence

A Novel

by Adam Foulds

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Jun 2019, 224 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Adam Foulds, the award-winning author of The Quickening Maze, pens a stunning and terrifying vision of the damage done between a fan and a celebrity in Dream Sequence―where the borders between inner and outer life have been made porous in a world full of flickering screens large and small.

Henry became famous starring in The Grange, a television drama beloved by mothers and wives, and whose fans speak about the characters as though they were real people ... yet Henry dreams of escaping the small screen. An audition for a movie directed by a highly respected Spanish auteur holds the promise of a way forward. Whether holed up in his apartment eating monkish meals of rice and steamed vegetables or snorting cocaine at desert parties in Doha, Henry's awareness of his own image, of his relative place in the world, is acute and constant.

But Henry has also―unwittingly―become an important part of the life of recently divorced Kristin. He appears repeatedly on the television in her beautiful, empty Philadelphia house, and her social media feeds bring news of his London home, his family. What Kristin wants is simply to get as close to him in real life as she has in her fandom.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Foulds's novel is fun, smart, and tense, part psychological drama about media-driven obsession and part razor-sharp social critique." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An incisive and disquieting look at the consequences of fame." - Kirkus

"Dream Sequence, is an exquisitely concocted, riveting account of artistic ambition and unrequited love verging on obsession." - The Spectator (UK)

"The dream Adam Foulds weaves in this scintillating novel is gradually revealed, with grace and subtlety, to be an especially timely form of waking nightmare ... Read this book." - John Wray, author of Godsend

This information about Dream Sequence 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.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Adam Foulds Author Biography

Adam Foulds was born in 1974, graduated Oxford University, took a creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia, and now lives in South London.

His book-length narrative poem, The Broken Word, was shortlisted for a number of awards, including the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and won the 2008 Whitbread Costa Poetry Award. His first novel, The Truth About These Strange Times, was published in 2007 and he was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2008. His other works inlude: The Quickening Maze (2009), In the Wolf's Mouth (2014).

In 2013 he was included in the Granta list of 20 best young writers.

Link to Adam Foulds's Website

Name Pronunciation
Adam Foulds: fohldz

Other books by Adam Foulds at BookBrowse
  • The Quickening Maze jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Dream Sequence, try these:

  • Henry Henry jacket

    Henry Henry

    by Allen Bratton

    Published 2025

    About this book

    Crackling with intelligence and wit, Henry Henry is a brilliant recasting of the Henriad in which Hal Lancaster is a queer protagonist for a new era.

  • 2 A.M. in Little America jacket

    2 A.M. in Little America

    by Ken Kalfus

    Published 2022

    About this book

    From "an important writer in every sense" (David Foster Wallace), a novel that imagines a future in which sweeping civil conflict has forced America's young people to flee its borders, into an unwelcoming world.

  • Forest Dark jacket

    Forest Dark

    by Nicole Krauss

    Published 2018

    About this book

    Bursting with life and humor, Forest Dark is a profound, mesmerizing novel of metamorphosis and self-realization—of looking beyond all that is visible towards the infinite.

We have 10 read-alikes for Dream Sequence, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

More Literary Fiction

Browse all Literary Fiction books

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
Who Said...

A million monkeys...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.