Lucid Dreams: A Novel
Daphne Palasi Andreades
Jan 2027 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Jennifer Aquino
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infoThis book will become available on January 12, 2027. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this audiobook
A surreal and intimate novel about a disillusioned artist who, plagued by mysterious visions, must navigate a series of personal and existential crises that upend their way of life, by the award-winning author of Brown Girls
“As heartfelt as it is audacious, Lucid Dreams poses profound questions about love, ambition, and selfhood, challenging us all to look beneath the surface of our own desires.”—Nadia Owusu, Whiting Award–winning author of Aftershocks: A Memoir
Fresh off the success of their first novel, a writer—intense, ambitious, and embittered by the purpose of art—struggles with feelings of despair. Despite achieving a long-held dream, they find themself doubtful and despondent in a post-pandemic world that feels violent and unstable.
Amidst this turmoil, and a looming deadline for their next book, the writer tries and fails to create. Instead, they begin to experience strange hallucinatory visions. Enigmatic letters and sketches appear, written in handwriting that isn’t their own, followed by sightings of a mysterious figure, which blur the line between the narrator’s fiction and lived reality.
These challenges—psychological, artistic, spiritual—and the secrets the writer harbors, alienate them from their loved ones, their art, and themself. Despite forays into learning a heritage language, Tagalog, traveling abroad, and changing their look, the visions persist—until one fateful event, which draws the writer and the mysterious figure together.
With her signature daring approach and evocative prose, Daphne Palasi Andreades explores immigration, modern womanhood, and the tension between art and commerce, in this wholly original novel. Lucid Dreams examines how we find purpose, the nature of change, and the courage it takes to be fully alive today.
“As heartfelt as it is audacious, Lucid Dreams poses profound questions about love, ambition, and selfhood, challenging us all to look beneath the surface of our own desires.”—Nadia Owusu, Whiting Award–winning author of Aftershocks: A Memoir
Fresh off the success of their first novel, a writer—intense, ambitious, and embittered by the purpose of art—struggles with feelings of despair. Despite achieving a long-held dream, they find themself doubtful and despondent in a post-pandemic world that feels violent and unstable.
Amidst this turmoil, and a looming deadline for their next book, the writer tries and fails to create. Instead, they begin to experience strange hallucinatory visions. Enigmatic letters and sketches appear, written in handwriting that isn’t their own, followed by sightings of a mysterious figure, which blur the line between the narrator’s fiction and lived reality.
These challenges—psychological, artistic, spiritual—and the secrets the writer harbors, alienate them from their loved ones, their art, and themself. Despite forays into learning a heritage language, Tagalog, traveling abroad, and changing their look, the visions persist—until one fateful event, which draws the writer and the mysterious figure together.
With her signature daring approach and evocative prose, Daphne Palasi Andreades explores immigration, modern womanhood, and the tension between art and commerce, in this wholly original novel. Lucid Dreams examines how we find purpose, the nature of change, and the courage it takes to be fully alive today.
A surreal and intimate novel about a disillusioned artist who, plagued by mysterious visions, must navigate a series of personal and existential crises that upend their way of life, by the award-winning author of Brown Girls
“As heartfelt as it is audacious, Lucid Dreams poses profound questions...
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About the author
Daphne Palasi Andreades is an artist and educator from Queens, New York. Daphne’s innovative debut novel, Brown Girls, was hailed as “fearless” by The New York Times, and 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. She earned her MFA from Columbia University. Lucid Dreams is her second novel.
Daphne Palasi Andreades is an artist and educator from Queens, New York. Daphne’s innovative debut novel, Brown Girls, was hailed as “fearless” by The New York Times, and was a finalist for several prestigious awards: the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction—the largest prize for women and n...
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