The Poppy Fields

The Poppy Fields (2025) is a speculative novel by American author Nikki Erlick. Erlick’s debut novel, The Measure (2022), was a New York Times bestseller and a Today Show “Read With Jenna” book-club pick. Erlick holds degrees from Columbia University and Harvard University and worked as a travel writer and ghostwriter before the publication of her first novel. Erlick’s work has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Newsweek, New York Magazine, and The Huffington Post, among other publications. The Poppy Fields follows a group of travelers as they make their way to an experimental grief-treatment facility where patients are put into a state of medically induced sleep to bypass the first, difficult stages of grief after losing loved ones. The novel explores themes including The Individual Nature of Grief and Healing, The Impact of Family Relationships on Identity Development, and The Formation of Surrogate Families Through Shared Trauma.

This guide refers to the 2025 hardcover edition published by William Morrow.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, child death, mental illness, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with an image of a massive group of sleeping people, or “sleepers,” each clad in red pajamas and lined up in a hospital bed. They are undergoing an experimental treatment meant to alleviate grief. Illustrator Ava Jones and her small dog, PJ, are on their way to the facility, called the Poppy Fields, where the sleepers are housed. Ava is looking for her sister, Emmy. Firefighter Ray is also en route to the Poppy Fields, hoping for answers about his brother Johnny’s death. Sasha, an occupational therapist who recently lost her fiancé, is also on her way there, hoping to undergo the treatment.

Because of an ill-timed storm, these three end up stranded at an airport in Kansas together, unable to get flights to LAX. Ray decides to drive and is able to rent a car, but Sasha and Ava get to the queue after the last vehicle has already been rented out. Sasha, an extrovert, befriends Ava and suggests that they drive there together. She boldly announces to everyone gathered at the rental-car counter that she and Ava are looking for someone to drive with and will happily split the cost of gas. Against his better judgment, Ray agrees to share his car with the two women.

Ava is an illustrator/artist with a long history of anxiety. As a child, her grandmother Granny Mae suggested that she take up drawing as a way to manage her emotions, and it became a lifelong passion and profession. A sensitive soul, she loves her dog and misses her sister. The two were close as children, but Emmy’s career ambitions took her far from their childhood home in Kansas, and the two gradually drifted apart.

Ray, although strong and capable, is struggling in the wake of his brother Johnny’s death. Johnny underwent the experimental sleep treatment at the Poppy Fields—he died of an aneurysm shortly after, which was unconnected to the treatment. Ray is sure that the Poppy Fields is in some way responsible for Johnny’s death, and he is headed there seeking answers.

Sasha is a friendly occupational therapist with deep ties to her family. She is stricken with both guilt and grief after losing her fiancé, Dean. She was poised to call off their wedding at the last minute when he was fatally struck by a drunk driver. She hopes to undergo the sleep treatment at the Poppy Fields.

The three set out on their cross-country journey, slowly opening up to one another about their reasons for traveling to the Poppy Fields. Sasha and Ray are more forthcoming than Ava, however, because Ava is carefully safeguarding a secret: Emmy, who now goes by her middle name, Ellis, is the brains and mastermind behind the Poppy Fields. Their estrangement is partly the result of Ellis having prioritized her work over their family and her failure to come home when Granny Mae, who raised them, was dying.

By the time Ava does feel comfortable enough to reveal this secret to the other two, they have already begun to develop a bond based on their shared experiences of grief and loss. Sasha and Ray are initially upset that Ava would keep the identity of her sister a secret from them, and the group experiences a moment of conflict. Both Ray and Sasha come around, however, and admit to Ava that they understand why she chose not to reveal her sister’s identity to them.

Along the way, the group picks up an additional traveler: Sky is an 18-year-old girl who has decided to hitchhike across the American Southwest upon graduation from high school. A free spirit, she does not feel ready to settle down and wants to delay making a concrete plan for her future. Sky, although young and still immature, ultimately helps each member of the group in her own way. She teaches Ava how to drive, helps Sasha process some of her grief, and provides Ray with a sense of direction and purpose.

As the group drives toward the Poppy Fields, Ellis oversees the sleep treatment and ruminates on the treatment’s only issue: a side effect present in 25% of the sleepers that she calls “emotional moderation,” which strips sleepers of the love they felt toward the person they lost or other family members. She cannot figure out why some sleepers emerge from sleep feeling less emotional pain and others instead experience a complete lack of emotional connection.

Her staff wish to expand the project and open a new facility, but Ellis cannot imagine doing so while there is still the question of the side effect. She is consumed by her obsession with the side effect and is often lost in thought about particular patients in whom it presents. A group of protestors, also upset with the treatment’s side effect, has begun to mount a campaign against the Poppy Fields, and Ellis must also contend with the negative publicity that it produces.

The group leaves Sky in Sedona, Arizona, and makes their way to the Poppy Fields. The center is in a secret location, and they enlist the help of a neighboring bar owner in finding it. On this last leg of their journey, helped in part by talking to the others, Sasha realizes that she does not want to undergo treatment. Grief, she realizes, is part of life. She chooses not to accompany Ray and Ava to the Poppy Fields.

Ray and Ava proceed alone, and when Ava tells the security guard that she is Ellis’s sister, they are shown directly to her. Ava and Ellis have a long conversation, during which they discuss their differences and the impact that Ellis’s work has had on their relationship. Although Ellis is unsure that she will be able to be the sister that Ava needs, she agrees to try to repair their fractured bond.

Ellis admits to Ava that part of their estrangement is the result of her having undergone the sleep treatment—she is one of the 25% who experienced the side effect. She stopped speaking to Ava because she no longer feels familial love. She also resolves to step down from her leadership position at the Poppy Fields. She misses research and would rather devote her time to studying the side effect.

While Ava and Ellis are talking, Ray speaks with Ellis’s second-in-command. Ray, too, has grown and changed over the course of the road trip and now feels that the best way to deal with his own grief and honor his brother would be to seek the sleep treatment. Johnny’s decision to go to the Poppy Fields initially caused their rift, and seeking the treatment himself feels like the best way to honor Johnny’s decision. Each member of the group stays in touch going forward, and the friendship that they developed on their journey to the Poppy Fields proves lasting.