Description
'A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future ... An elegant meditation on identity, motherhood, and what we sacrifice, unthinkingly, for the sake of convenience' JENNIFER EGAN
'Extraordinary ... More than just a political warning; the book is an exploration of the psyche itself, the strange ungovernable forces of fate and emotion that make us human' RUMAAN ALAM
In a world without privacy, what is the cost of freedom?
Sara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport and inform her that she will commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she presents an imminent risk to the person she loves most, and must now be transferred to a retention centre for twenty-one days to lower her 'risk score'.
But when Sara arrives at Madison to be observed alongside other dangerous dreamers, it soon becomes clear that getting home to her family is going to cost more than just three weeks of good behaviour. And as every minor misdemeanour, every slight deviation from the rules, adds time to her stay, she begins to wonder if there might be more here than first meets the eye.
Then, one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and setting off a chain of events that lead Sara on a collision course with the companies that have deprived her of her freedom.
The Dream Hotel is a gripping speculative mystery about the seductive dangers of the technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier. As terrifying as it is inventive, it explores how much we can ever truly know those around us - even with the most invasive surveillance systems in place.
A gripping, inventive and terrifying speculative mystery about privacy, freedom and survival - from the Pulitzer Prize and Booker Prize nominated author
About the Author
Laila Lalami is the author of five books, including The Moor's Account, which won the American Book Award, Arab American Book Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was on the longlist for the Booker Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her essays appear regularly in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Nation, Harper's, Guardian and New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She lives in Los Angeles.
Reviews
The Dream Hotel offers a stark vision of the future - in which America is a surveillance state, ruled by the intertwined forces of capital and government, powered by an all-too-fallible algorithm that determines criminality based on citizen's dreams. That's plainly a metaphor for extant practices of social control, but Laila Lalami's extraordinary new novel is more than just a political warning; the book is an exploration of the psyche itself, the strange ungovernable forces of fate and emotion that make us human -- Rumaan Alam, bestselling author of LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND
A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future where data collection penetrates interior life, The Dream Hotel is also an elegant meditation on identity, motherhood, and what we sacrifice, unthinkingly, for the sake of convenience -- Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE CANDY HOUSE
A thought provoking and compellingly plausible novel. Totally immersive and unputdownable -- John Marrs
Absolutely unputdownable. Lalami's protagonist is flawed in ways that frustrate and panic us partly because they're so relatable: these are the mistakes we would end up making; this is how we would find ourselves the victims of the new security technologies that promise to keep us safe. It's also a great work about the warped logic of mass incarceration; a sci-fi take on The Mars Room for the era of ubiquitous surveillance. This is one I'll be thinking about for a long time. -- Sandra Newman
I was utterly gripped, caught up, as if I was living the same nightmare as Sara. It felt terrifyingly and convincingly close -- Esther Freud
A terrifying, thought-provoking and timely exploration of the inevitable march of algorithms and data-harvesting into our innermost lives. The Dream Hotel offers not only a real-feeling diorama of an extensively-surveilled prison population, but a masterclass in the art of cortisol-raising - to be filed alongside The Trial and The School for Good Mothers -- Jo Harkin
Stellar ... There are echoes of The Handmaid's Tale here - as Margaret Atwood does in that book, Lalami builds a convincing near-future dystopia out of current events ... But Lalami's scenario is unique and well-imagined - interspersed report sheets, transcripts, and terms-of-service lingo have a realistic, poignant lyricism that exposes the cruel bureaucracy in which Sara is trapped ... And the story exposes the particular perniciousness of big tech's capacity to exploit our every movement, indeed practically every thought ... Striking ... An engrossing and troubling dystopian tale * Kirkus *
Book Information
ISBN 9781526685193
Author Laila Lalami
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint Bloomsbury Circus
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
