Nicole Wolverton

The Trajectory of Dreams Nicole Wolverton

THE TRAJECTORY OF DREAMS, chosen as #15 on Typographical Era's Best Reads of 2013.

It begins with an explosion. Lela White's life hasn't been the same since the space shuttle disintegrated into a bright blue sky when she was a ten year old girl. Since her mother disappeared without a word or explanation. Years later, the world has moved on, but Lela hasn't.

Her precisely-ordered world revolves around both events. She can't forget. She can't let go. She can only prepare for the worst: the day she has to kill to keep the space shuttle from exploding again.

A novel that explores mental illness and the impact of national tragedies, The Trajectory of Dreams is told from the point of view of Lela White, a gravely mentally ill woman whose delusions compel her to break into astronauts' homes to watch them sleep. Only her careful monitoring of their REM cycles and judgments about their fitness for space flight can keep the shuttle program safe. The greater good is the only thing that matters. She can't be found out or have her work interrupted. Lela finds a way to balance her secret mission and her daytime job as a technician in Houston's premiere sleep lab.

When Zory Korchagin, a Russian cosmonaut on loan to the U. S. shuttle program, finds himself drawn to Lela, he puts her carefully-constructed world at risk of an explosion as surely as he does his own upcoming launch. As Lela's universe unravels, no one is safe.