Do you remember how you got here?
“At an exquisite mansion perched on an edenic plateau, twenty-some guests are remembering their dreams as clearly as yesterday. All that’s required is to let an eccentric guru called the Diving Man work their subconscious like a snake-charmer. Parts Willy Wonka, Judge Holden, and Tim Leary, he seems to know what can’t be known, professes a bizarre philosophy, and spends his days leaping from the cliffs to hold his breath for minutes on end in the churning river below. He is also plotting against the dissolution of the world. The House draws Lynn, an anxious, earnest therapist who foresaw her fiancé’s death in a dream. . .or, just maybe, called it into being. This is her last chance to heal, but only if she can come to terms with her dark connection to another seeker—the young logophile Daniel, who is afflicted with a strange disease inextricable from an even stranger gift.”
(hint hint, you can listen to the first third of the book for free)
REVIEWS
An in-depth conversation about HOUSE OF SLEEP with acclaimed novelist Aaron Gwyn
From Kirkus Reviews: “A cerebral and inventive tale exploring the power of the subconscious.” “Wonderfully moody prose.” “Kelly has created an indisputably original—and mind-bending—story. . .”
From Jesse Hilson: “It is 311 pages long but this metric conceals that House of Sleep is a thick book, a maximalist, heavy, syrupy book teeming with description and lyricism and mystical insight bordering on snow blindness.”
From J.L. Mackey: “Kelly does an excellent job creating unique voices for characters. This is a particularly tall order, given how much time we spend in their heads and dreams and hearts. This, perhaps, impresses me most about the novel. The author earnestly addresses things like faith, fate, intuition, spirit, love, and modernity. As with any piece of fiction worth it’s weight, there’s a lot to unpack. Russian nesting dolls all worthy of opening, and whose eyes seem to follow yours.”
Review by Ben Thomas, publisher at House Blackwood and author of “The Cradle and the Sword”
From Indie Mystic: “What is that place where reality ends and dreams begin? Can our dreams impact our reality, and in turn can reality be shaped by our dreams? These philosophical questions are brilliantly explored in the recently published book House of Sleep by Brad Kelly. This genre-melding fictional story invites the reader to question the nature of our dreams, where we derive personal satisfaction from in our life, and the ultimate quest for the existence of an omnipresent divine being.”
From Greg Sapp on Reedsy Discovery: “In Brad Kelly’s mesmeric first novel, dreams are more than just chimeras of the subconscious.”
From Typesetters: “Brad Kelly creates a beautiful world full of mystery and suspense…[with a] great progression of concepts deep as the unexplored floors of the ocean.”
From Atop the Cliffs: “What I read was both engaging and disturbing.”
