Book Review: Dreambound by Dan Frey

As a voracious reader, I’ve never felt bound to any one genre of publishing, though crime fiction certainly has primacy in my heart. Books that understand this and defy the limitations of genre have especial appeal to me. Books that do this while also being about books – and while being wildly entertaining – thus feel like the best sort of read, a veritable gift from the universe. Or, in this case, from the pen of Dan Frey.

There is a trope in fantasy fiction, particularly in modern works revolving around portals between this dimension and others, that forms the initial basis of this extraordinary epistolary novel. Byron Kidd is an investigative journalist whose teenage daughter Liza has disappeared after seemingly running away from home. Six months on and with no answers from the police or the public, he applies his skills to Liza’s interests in an effort to understand why she left in the first place and where she might be now. 

Liza had been heavily invested in a five-book Young Adult fantasy series called Fairy Tale. The heroine, Ciara, had also run away from home. As a fairy tells her, in an excerpt Byron quotes in an email:

“Simply touch the water, and it will rob your memories. Submerge yourself entirely, and you will be forgotten entirely. Even if you do survive a swim, no one will know you ever existed. Not even you.”

 

Ciara turned and stared out at the frothing waves of abyss. A shiver of terror at their dark power coursed through her veins.

 

Then she charged madly across the sand and dove right in.

 

To me this seems like nonsense. And disturbing. How am I supposed to read this passage if not as a veiled metaphor for teen suicide? Fuck these books.

Byron knows that as estranged he and his daughter had become – and it takes him a while to acknowledge the breadth of the space between them – she would never have killed herself. While his now ex-wife Valerie is ready to accept that Liza is dead, Byron is not. He begins to dig into Liza’s expressions of fandom, exploring the Internet and uncovering disturbing facts about other missing kids that could be tied back to Fairy Tale and its reclusive author:

There has been an epidemic of global disappearances in recent years, all connected to the Fairy Tale book series. Exact numbers are hard to pin down, but I have identified at least 26 different cases–half in the U.S., half abroad–that fit the same fact pattern. Diehard fans of this fictional world, whose ages range from 8 to 18, have vanished without a trace. Prior to their disappearance, each victim engaged in online communications regarding their fandom. And at least 21 of the cases have some connection to Los Angeles, which is both the home city of Fairy Tale author Annabelle Tobin and the site where the movies are filmed.

 

Are the cases abductions? Runaways? Something else entirely?

In his desperate search for Liza, Byron prepares to burn every social and professional bridge he has. This task will utilize all of his skills, sometimes in less than above board fashion. He flies to Los Angeles and finagles his way step-by-step into the inner circle of Fairy Tale, even as he teeters on a knife-edge between reality and conspiracy theory. Because what he suspects about what really happened to Liza couldn’t possibly be true, could it? And if it is, how can he possibly find his daughter and bring her home?

Like Byron, I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the thinly veiled metaphors for teenage suicide prevalent in many popular fantasy novels. Unlike Mr. Frey, I never thought that the perfect antidote to this would be a book about a less than terrific parent understanding how they messed up, and then doing their absolute best to meet their suffering child where that child is. Dreambound is an astonishing work of maturity and empathy that had me sobbing like a baby through the ending pages. It’s hard to say more, because I don’t want to accidentally spoil anything about this amazing book, but if you’re a parent who cares about connecting with your kids, like I am, as well as a fan of both the fantasy and mystery genres, then you absolutely must read this smart, stylish heartbreaker of a novel.