Book excerpt: 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 for the first time about a life lived in pursuit of his singular vision, and the many heartaches and struggles he’s 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 new 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 living 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 Praise for Room to Dream “A memorable portrait of one of cinema’s great auteurs . . . provides a remarkable insight into [David] Lynch’s intense commitment to the ‘art life.’ ”—The Guardian “This is the best book by and about a movie director since Elia Kazan’s A Life (1988) and Michael Powell’s A Life in Movies (1986). But Room to Dream is more enchanting or appealing than those classics. . . . What makes this book endearing is its chatty, calm account of how genius in America can be a matter-of-fact defiance of reality that won’t alarm your dog or save mankind. It’s the only way to dream in so disturbed a country.”—San Francisco Chronicle