No Exit

By Paul Gray

DREAM SCIENCE

by Thomas Palmer

Ticknor & Fields; 308 pages; $19.95

Rockland Poole, a mutual-fund manager in his mid-30s, suddenly finds himself in a room that could be his office but decidedly is not. It has all the accoutrements of white-collar work -- desks, chairs on casters, a file cabinet -- and a hospital bed where Poole must sleep each night. His food is brought to him daily by Mac, a burly man who can come and go as he pleases. Poole cannot; he has searched every square inch of the corridor outside and found no exit.

Fortunately for Poole, and for Thomas Palmer's second novel, a way out eventually materializes. What could have become a drawn-out absurdist melodrama with yuppie trappings veers instead into an adventure story with nightmarish resonances. Poole is at first willing to suppose that his imprisonment was simply a bad dream. After all, he reappears in his suburban house to find that his wife Carmen has not noticed his absence. Another explanation occurs to Poole: he is going bonkers.

But there is a third explanation, and Poole comes to believe it. He stepped, or was pulled, into an alternative reality. He escaped from the room by walking through a "line," a shimmering envelope that appears where different worlds intersect. Although he is relieved to be back home, Poole suspects that he may vanish again without notice. Sure enough, he does.

It is no insult to Dream Science to note that its plot, when summarized, sounds ludicrous: a series of improbabilities leading past the total destruction of Stamford, Conn. Thanks to Palmer's low-key narrative, the credibility is all in the telling. The focus remains on Poole, an ordinary soul subjected to extraordinary experiences. Everyone has had the feeling, at one time or another, that the world no longer makes sense. Poole has the proof. And what he must do to save himself, his loved ones, even the earth, proves riveting and unforgettable.