"The Dream Hotel" | Reviewed by William Winkler

Laila Lailami is a Moroccan-American author now living in the Los Angeles area. Born in Rabat, Morocco, she earned a degree in linguistics before relocating to this country to pursue a Ph.D. in the same subject.

Her previous novels are based in her native country. But her most recent work, “The Dream Hotel,” is set in a dystopian Southern California in the near future.

The novel opens as Sara Hussein, an archivist at the Getty Museum, returns from an assignment in London. As she proceeds through customs at LAX she is called into a separate line and into an interrogation room, where she is told there is concern she might be at risk of committing a crime, specifically an attempt to harm her husband.

This concern is based on an algorithm created by the Risk Assessment Administration (RAA). The algorithm uses data from multiple databases, including dreams collected from an implanted device ostensibly developed to help users sleep better and more efficiently.

After a series of interrogations Sara is relieved of all of her belongings, passport and telephone included, and placed on a bus which delivers her to a converted elementary school in a tiny town 90 miles east of Los Angeles, a “retention” facility. She is not allowed to contact her husband to inform him of these proceedings.

She is informed she has not committed a crime, but in the interest of public safety she will be retained for a minimum of three weeks while her behavior is observed and her risk score is further evaluated. The facility has a lengthy handbook of rules and regulations, most of them petty. Violation of any of these rules runs the risk of worsening her risk score and prolonging her period of detention. The attendants observe the detainees closely and are evaluated by how rigorously they make note of infractions.

The majority of the retainees, although not required to do so, work at menial jobs in the laundry, cafeteria and other tasks to earn meager funds to spend on “luxury” items at the commissary. Others work at reviewing videos prepared by the government, a task that generates revenue for the RAA. After nearly a half-year, Sara obtains her release by organizing a strike among the reviewers, preventing the facility from meeting its revenue goals.

“The Dream Hotel,” like Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” is a chilling look into a potentially frightening future.

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