This past Thursday, my husband, son, and I drove home from the Big Ten basketball tournament in Indianapolis where we had been cheering on our Northwestern Wildcats. My sister had treated us to incredible third-row seats, so we could hear the players talking to each other and see beads of sweat flying from their hair. The energy was electric.

And yet, as I looked around, I couldn’t help but notice the sheer amount of plastic cups and wasted food strewn under and around our seats. That’s me—always aware of the impact of our choices on the planet and animals.

At the same time, we were surrounded by people chasing success—athletes hoping for a professional future, fans who were likely college graduates themselves. It was a room filled with people who, at least on the surface, were living the American Dream.

But as I sat there, my mind kept returning to Dream State by Eric Puchner, a novel I had just finished and couldn’t stop thinking about. I found it completely immersive, racing through it in just a few days.

Puchner’s novel grapples with a sobering truth: he doesn’t just question whether the American Dream is accessible—he takes it apart, exposing its contradictions and the ways it falls short in a changing world. His characters reflect that struggle—Cece opens a bookstore only to find it’s not the dream she imagined; Charlie has all the external markers of success yet suffers deeply; and Garrett, the odd one out, somehow avoids the turmoil that burdens those who followed the expected paths.

Spanning generations, the novel shows how shifting times make the search for happiness more complicated—and how outside forces, especially climate change, shake the very foundation of the American Dream.

Sitting in that stadium, surrounded by people who had either followed traditional routes to success or were still chasing them—like the student basketball players striving for a future in the sport—I wondered if we were all holding onto a dream that no longer fits the world we live in. The consumption, the disregard for waste, the illusion that things will always continue as they have—these are the very illusions Dream State challenges.

Puchner doesn’t offer easy answers, but he forces us to reckon with the realities of a changing world. Maybe the American Dream isn’t about climbing a ladder anymore—it’s about seeing the world for what it truly is and having the courage to tell the truth about it.