Say you've accomplished your lifelong dream. Now what?
Fresh off the success of their debut novel, a writer wrestles with disillusionment, despair, and mysterious visions in surreal sophomore novel, Lucid Dreams, by Daphne Palasi Andreades '19.
Andreades's own debut novel, Brown Girls (Random House, 2022), was hailed as "fearless" by The New York Times. Out with Random House in October 2027, Lucid Dreams follows its protagonist's spiral into a solipsistic stasis as they stare down a looming deadline and mounting post-pandemic global instability—as well as their various attempts to find their way back to themself: forays into learning a heritage language, Tagalog, traveling abroad, and changing their look—until one fateful event draws the writer and the spectral figure of their visions together.
"Andreades has created an exhilaratingly candid and elegant chronicle of a writer wrestling with the commodification of literature and the purpose of art," said Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West (William Morrow, 2024). "Lucid Dreams is a forceful, vivid, experimental work on language and lineage, on disorientation and immigration—and, ultimately, an utterly singular coming-of-age tale on how to forge a new relationship with one’s work. This novel is, in itself, an inspiration and a revolution for art-makers."
Daphne Palasi Andreades is an artist and educator from Queens, New York. Her novel Brown Girls was a finalist for several prestigious awards: the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction—the largest prize for women and nonbinary writers in the world—the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the New American Voices Award. Her work has been taught to students across numerous universities and writing workshops, and has been published in over seventy countries. In 2024, she served as the Writer-in-Residence at The City University of New York, Baruch College. Currently, she is at work on her third novel, a screenplay, and short stories.
Lucid Dreams is available now for preorder.
