Room to Dream - Paperback

by David Lynch (Author), Kristine McKenna (Author)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - An unprecedented look into the personal and creative life of the visionary auteur David Lynch, through his own words and those of his closest colleagues, friends, and family

"Insightful . . . an impressively industrious and comprehensive account of Lynch's career."--The New York Times Book Review

In this unique hybrid of biography and memoir, David Lynch opens up about a life lived in pursuit of his singular vision, and the many heartaches and struggles he faced to bring his unorthodox projects to fruition. Lynch's lyrical, intimate, and unfiltered personal reflections riff off biographical sections written by close collaborator Kristine McKenna and based on more than one hundred interviews with surprisingly candid ex-wives, family members, actors, agents, musicians, and colleagues in various fields who all have their own takes on what happened.

Room to Dream is a landmark book that offers a onetime all-access pass into the life and mind of one of our most enigmatic and utterly original artists.

With insights into . . .
Eraserhead
The Elephant Man
Dune
Blue Velvet
Wild at Heart
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Lost Highway
The Straight Story
Mulholland Drive
INLAND EMPIRE
Twin Peaks: The Return

Author Biography

David Lynch advanced to the front ranks of international cinema in 1977 with the release of his first film, the startlingly original Eraserhead. Over the course of his career, Lynch was nominated for three Best Director Academy Awards (The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive), won the Palme d'Or for Wild at Heart, swept the country with Twin Peaks mania in 1990 when his groundbreaking television series premiered on ABC, and established himself as an artist of tremendous range and wit. He is the author of a previous book, Catching the Big Fish, on Transcendental Meditation. David Lynch died in January 2025.

Kristine McKenna is a widely published critic and journalist who wrote for the Los Angeles Times from 1976 through 1998, and has been a close friend and interviewer of David Lynch since 1979. Her profiles and criticism have appeared in Artforum, The New York Times, ARTnews, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. Her books include The Ferus Gallery: A Place to Begin and two collections of interviews.