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BY DAVID LYNCH
ROOM TO DREAM
CATCHING THE BIG FISH
BY KRISTINE MCKENNA
ROOM TO DREAM
TALK TO HER
BOOK OF CHANGES
THE FERUS GALLERY: A PLACE TO BEGIN
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books
Copyright © David Lynch and Kristine McKenna, 2018
The moral right of the authors has been asserted
First published in the U.S.A. in 2018 by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
Photo credits appear on pages 549-54
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78211 841 1
eISBN 978 1 78211 840 4
Book design by Simon M. Sullivan
Hand lettering by David Lynch
Dedicated to His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
and
the world family
CONTENTS
A suburban romance, only different
People Go Up and Then They Go Down
A Shot of White Lightning and A Chick
INTRODUCTION
When we decided to write Room to Dream together a few years back there were two things we wanted to achieve. The first was to get as close as we could to producing a definitive biography; that means all the facts, figures, and dates are correct, and all the pertinent participants are present and accounted for. Second, we wanted the voice of the subject to play a prominent role in the narrative.
Toward that end we devised a way of working that some might find strange; our hope, however, is that the reader is able to discern a kind of rhythm in it. First, one of us (Kristine) would write a chapter employing the customary tools of biography, including research and interviews with more than one hundred people—family members, friends, ex-wives, collaborators, actors, and producers. Then, the other (David) would review that chapter, correct any errors or inaccuracies, and produce his own chapter in response using the memories of others to unearth his own. What you’re reading here is basically a person having a conversation with his own biography.
No ground rules were laid down and nothing was declared off-limits when we embarked on the book. The many people who graciously agreed to be interviewed were free to tell their version of events as they saw fit. The book is not intended to be an exegesis on the films and artworks that are part of this story; material of that sort is abundantly available elsewhere. This book is a chronicle of things that happened, not an explanation of what those things mean.
As we approached the completion of our collaboration we were both left with the same thought: The book seems short and barely scratches the surface of the story at hand. Human consciousness is too vast to fit between the covers of a book, and every experience has too many facets to count. We aimed to be definitive, but it’s still merely a glimpse.
—DAVID LYNCH & KRISTINE MCKENNA
American Pastoral