[2] The book is a love story about two passionate liberals with vastly different approaches to their ideologies: Fielding Pierce is a lawyer and aspiring politician, and Sarah Williams is a social activist who despises the political system.

As Pierce becomes obsessed with finding out if his lost lover is alive, he is pushed to the brink of insanity and begins to fear he has become fully absorbed and changed by the political system Williams so hated.

[1] Michiko Kakutani, book reviewer for The New York Times compared Waking the Dead to the 1976 Brian De Palma film Obsession.

[3] Kakutani also said the first-person narration Spencer mastered in Endless Love, was less successful in Waking the Dead and occasionally "tend[s] to come across as simple-minded or phony digressions".

Gordon remained so faithful to the book during his adaptation that the first cut of the movie was three hours long; he shortened it to 105 minutes by trimming subplots, stories and unnecessary scenes.