'Walker writes beautifully about the things that define how a society either endures or collapses in crisis, a theme that may never have been more timely than it is now.' -Minneapolis StarTribune Walker uses evocative language to describe the almost bewitching nature of contagion.' - The Washington Post both more dangerous and more powerful than the Greeks could have ever imagined. 'In The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker's second novel, dreams are. 'Walker offers a novel bursting with ideas, probing the scary and tantalizing possibilities at the edges of our existence.' - USA Today In a word, this book is stunning.' -Emily St. ' The Dreamers is harrowing, riveting, profoundly moving, and beautifully written. This book achieves dazzling, aching humanity.' - Entertainment Weekly Walker's sentences are smooth, emotionally arresting-of a true, ethereal beauty. The Dreamers is overflowing with humanity.' - Jezebel written with symphonic sweep.' - The New York Times Book Review ' gripping, provocative novel should come with a warning: may cause insomnia.' - People (Book of the Week) the perfect ambiguous frame for a tense and layered plot.' - O: The Oprah Magazine

'Walker's roving fictive eye by turns probes characters' innermost feelings and zooms out to coolly parse topics like reality versus delusion. Written in luminous prose, The Dreamers is a breathtaking and beautiful novel, startling and provocative, about the possibilities contained within a human life-if only we are awakened to them. They are dreaming heightened dreams-but of what? Those affected by the illness, doctors discover, are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster.

A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. One night in an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep-and doesn't wake up. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Glamour - Real Simple - Good Housekeeping John Mandel, author of Station Eleven - 'A startling, beautiful portrait of a community in peril.'- Entertainment Weekly

Description NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE - An ordinary town is transformed by a mysterious illness that triggers perpetual sleep in this mesmerizing novel from the bestselling author of The Age of Miracles.

The dreamers walker