Dream State

Cece arrives early at a lake house in Salish, Montana to plan her wedding to Charlie, a kind young doctor, and Charlie has asked his old college friend Garrett, a misfit baggage handler, to officiate. As the wedding week unfolds and a stomach flu threatens to derail it, Cece finds herself drawn to Garrett and unsure of the future she thought she wanted. From that pivot, Puchner follows the three of them and their children across fifty years of marriage, friendship, betrayal, and reconciliation, all set against a Montana backdrop reshaped by a warming climate. It is a sweeping, funny, aching novel about living with the mistakes we make and the ones we inherit.