Coming Soon: The Dream Hotel
One morning in 2013, I picked up my phone when I woke up and noticed a Google notification that said, “If you leave right now, you will make it to YogaWorks at 7.28.” I had never told Google what day of the week, what time of day, or even that I went to yoga, but the company had tracked my movements and in time its algorithms had learned my schedule and habits.
Not long after, the magazine Slate reported that Facebook keeps track of everything its users do on the app, including their keystrokes. I realized that if Facebook has a record of unposted comments, in effect it has access to our unvoiced opinions, which is to say our thoughts. I remember I turned to my husband and said, “Pretty soon the only privacy we will have will be in our dreams.” And then I thought, wait. What if someday even dreams are monitored?
I started exploring this idea in novel form, but after about seventy pages I hit a road block and decided to focus on a different novel I’d been working on, a family story set in the Mojave. Still, the idea of dream surveillance stayed in the back of my mind and, after The Other Americans was published, I returned to it, working slowly through the early days of the pandemic. I completed The Dream Hotel a few months ago and it is now in production, with this striking cover from the incomparable Jack Smyth.
The Dream Hotel is set in Los Angeles in the near future and follows a thirty-eight-year old archivist. Sara leads what is by all appearances an ordinary life: she works at a local museum, has a husband and twin toddlers, and spends her free time hiking or backpacking. One day, on her return home from a conference abroad, agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime.
Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that Sara is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them people trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended.
Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.
The Dream Hotel is set for release in the U.S. in March 2025 with Pantheon Books. Hop on over to People magazine for more details about the story and an exclusive excerpt from the first chapter!
And now, a humble request. As you all know, pre-orders are crucial to the launch of a book. If the description above appeals to you, please preorder the book now from your favorite retailer.