Randy Blazak

Have you ever wanted to go back in time to fix something in your life? The Dream Police rejoins the characters from Blazak's 2011 novel, The Mission of the Sacred Heart, fifteen years later. Zak and Lenny are in rapidly gentrifying Portland, Oregon, connected my their mistakes, one horribly tragic. They stumble upon lucid dreaming as a way to visit their favorite moments in rock and roll history, and maybe find alternate routes their own lives should have taken. Like Mission, The Dream Police is a rock novel. The story is built on the 1979 Cheap Trick album, using its songs to guide the musical fiction. The book tackles weighty issues, like gentrification, the commercialization of music, and the sexual politics of higher education, with humor and the energy that comes from a great song. The Dream Police is an innovative story, existing in both real time and dream time. Because it is rooted in the author's experiences as a sociology professor, the book is intended to help people heal.