The Trajectory of Dreams

Lela White is an insomniac whose tragic history has left her obsessed with astronauts. Believing sleep deprivation leads to launch accidents, she breaks into the bedrooms of astronauts to monitor them and, if necessary for the safety of the space program, kill those who don’t sleep soundly. Annoying co-worker Trina Shook insists on moving in with Lela after a tornado damages Trina’s house, and when Lela becomes entangled with visiting Russian cosmonaut Zory Korchagin, these two relationships accelerate her madness. Convinced of her righteousness, she is blind to any hint that she herself is the wrong note in her world until it is far too late. Wolverton has taken some liberties with details of the space program, but the primary fantastic elements are the symptoms of Lela’s increasingly dubious grasp on reality; this work is less horror or fantasy than a skillful mainstream examination of a psychotic woman’s final descent into insanity. (Mar.)