The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

FORMAT/INFO: The Dream of Perpetual Motion is 352 pages long divided over five parts, with each part divided into numbered segments. Also includes a Prologue, an Epilogue, and four Interludes. Narration alternates between the first-person and the third-person via the narrator of the book, Harold “Harry” Winslow. The Dream of Perpetual Motion is self-contained.

March 2, 2010 marks the North American Hardcover publication of The Dream of Perpetual Motion via St. Martin’s Press.

ANALYSIS: At the start to Dexter Palmer’s debut novel, The Dream of Perpetual Motion, readers are introduced to Harold “Harry” Winslow, the hero and narrator of the story,... Read More

The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

The Dream of Perpetual Motion, by Dexter Palmer, has a great opening. Past a poetic and ominous first few lines, we get the narrator telling us:
If my reckoning of time is still accurate... the one year anniversary of my incarceration aboard... a high altitude zeppelin designed by that most prodigious and talented of twentieth-century inventors, Prospero Taligent. It has also been a year since I last opened my mouth to speak. To anyone. Especially my captor... because it is the one thing that she desires, and my silence is the only form of protest that remains to me.
Great image — that zeppelin flying up there. Great hook — why’s he imprisoned up there. Why’s he not speaking. Who is “she”? Great voice — formal, solemn. In short, great opening. Does the rest of the book live up to the start? Well, not frequently e... Read More