Cleveland in My Dreams

Cleveland In My Dreams by Lawrence Block
(downloaded for free from Amazon.com as part of an Orange Wednesday on Mr. Block's blog)

This is less a book and more of a long joke.  Not necessarily a bad joke, but it absolutely culminates in a punchline.

A man goes to sleep every night and has the same dream.  He gets a call and is instructed to drive to Cleveland to deliver a briefcase to a particular address.  He follows the caller's instructions every night, makes the drive back and forth and wakes every morning, exhausted.  

What follows is his discussions about the dream with his therapist, who is no help at all.  He then finds a new therapist who comes up with a plan, the execution of the plan and the results.  

But that isn't all.  We then find another person who has a recurring dream, this one about beautiful women who appear at his door every night and his exhaustion in the morning after having satisfied them all.  Will the same plan work for him?

To tell one word more about this story would be to give it all away.  As I said, it's more of a long form joke, but as told by Lawrence Block, which really makes all the difference.  I always enjoy Block's story telling, even when he isn't telling about my favorite of his characters, bookstore owner/burglar extraordinaire, Bernie Rhodenbarr.

This was read as part of the COYER challenge.

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