Dream Sequence

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.

The longlist for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize:

Days by Moonlight by André Alexis

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Immigrant City by David Bezmozgis
Greenwood by Michael Christie
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
The Innocents by Michael Crummey
Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds
Late Breaking by K.D. Miller
Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin
Lampedusa by Steven Price
Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta

Reproduction by Ian Williams


The prize was won by Ian Williams for Reproduction, but my favourite was Michael Crummey's The Innocents.