# A love triangle set against the beauty of Montana in Eric Puchner's Dream State

An episode of [The Bookshelf](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/499762704), 17 Apr 2025, 54 min.

Audio: https://mediacore-live-production.akamaized.net/audio/02/8m/Z/rm.mp3

Families, secrets, mysteries, war...Kate and Cassie read Eric Puchner’s Dream State, an American saga that spans fifty years and is set against the expansive beauty of Montana; mysterious encounters and marital strife between an actor and an art critic in New York in Katie Kitamura’s Audition, and a World War II story set in an apartment block in Brussels in Alice Austen’s 33 Place Brugmann. BOOKS Eric Puchner, Dream State, Sceptre Katie Kitamura, Audition, Fern Press Alice Austen, 33 Place Brugmann, Bloomsbury GUESTS Mark Mordue, music writer, journalist, poet – whose books include Boy on Fire: The Young Nick Cave. He’s also director of the Addi Road Writers Festival – a community festival in Sydney’s Marrickville – coming up on Saturday 17 May Gretchen Shirm, novelist and literary critic – whose books include Having Cried Wolf, The Crying Room and her latest (published this month), Out of the Woods OTHER BOOKS MENTIONEDJohn Irving, The World According to GarpSvetlana Alexievich, worksT.S. Eliot, GerontionLucy Sante, I Heard Her Call My NameHan Kang, We Do Not PartJames Bradley, LandfallClinton Heylin, Behind the Shades RevisitedPatrick Holland, OblivionBret Easton Ellis, Less than Zero CREDITS • Presenter, Kate Evans + Cassie McCullagh • Producer, Kate Evans + Sarah Corbett • Sound engineer, John Jacobs + Dylan Prins • Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

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