From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
By Damla
“I knew in my heart—this was, perhaps, the only thing my heart knew back then — that when I’d slept enough, I’d be okay. I’d be renewed, reborn. I would be a whole new person, every one of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories. My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relaxation.”
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I really have an awed sense of respect for characters that seem to be only powered by their intrusive thoughts. There is a sense of freedom even in reading about them: no control, no care, only destruction and reckless abandon. The kind of things you would perhaps never do, but can’t help but wonder what if.
So, our heroine asks, what if the solution to the incessant feeling of alienation and grief that she feels is to just… sleep it off? Just to close your eyes, not for a few hours but for months on end, to get away from the loss of her parents, the toxic nature of her friendships, and the city that is so obsessed with power and status. So, with the help of an alarming quantity of sleeping pills and a general disregard for her health and relationships, she sets out to do just that.
The whole thing was a wild ride, fluctuating between recklessly sad, honest, bitter, funny, rude, numbing, and unexpected. For somebody who spends a whole year sleeping or shuffling around under the haze of heavy sleep inducing drugs, growing more and more unhinged by the day, she has strangely impactful insights that can knock you off your feet when you least expect it. That’s what’s so great about this book. In short, I would say this was like The Bell Jar, on all of the drugs.
Just a weird, hazy, dark, and fascinating read.
