A haunting debut novel from celebrated poet Kevin Prufer.
It's 1984, and the invisible mists are falling, mists that cause people to slip into dreamless slumber-sleeps from which most, but not all, awaken. Those who do wake live in fear of the next mist, and the next, each a little longer and more dangerous than the last.
Alternating between the perspectives of a kleptomaniac waitress named Cora and her twelve-year-old friend Glass, Sleepaway depicts a small-town America turned alarming. This is a place where loved ones are lost to a state between life and death; where denial, delusion, and desperation take hold of those remaining; where dealers of the antisleep drug Eight Track disappear into shadows, and a murderous wannabe kingpin hunts for victims.
As civilization is shaved away one sleep storm at a time, people struggle to go on, making and losing allies and discovering new strengths and weaknesses. Cora sets out on an ill-fated road trip hoping to reclaim her sister's love, only to discover a more powerful bond than blood. Glass, having lost his only parent to one of the first mists, searches for a stability he has never had and may never achieve. All the while, buildings rise outside town to cope with the mounting number of sleepers. Some see them as hospitals, others as repositories, and yet soon the air around them fills with ash.
An allegory for post-pandemic America, Sleepaway grapples with questions concerning friendship, race, and family amid the horror of inexplicable, arbitrary annihilation.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"A compelling, propulsive apocalyptic novel that plunges into the heartland of human complexity. Written in careful, spare prose, with intelligence and wit, Sleepaway raises important questions about how we deal with sickness and healing and, most importantly, about the human condition. What a book Sleepaway is!" * Brandon Hobson, author of "Where the Dead Sit Talking" * "Sleepaway is a truly frightening horror novel, but written with such gentle melancholy and sweetness that the dread only slowly envelops the reader. Sleepaway is also a great poetic novel about the end of childhood, that uncanny transition we all make--and about what that might feel like in the last days--and it all converged in a way that slew me. I will never forget that ending." * Dan Chaon, author of "Ill Will" * "Prufer paints beautifully the solace of found family after loss, the ways we both fail and step up to take care of each other. In a poet's voice, here aches the bittersweet awareness of how few moments we have alive. Here glows how we choose to love in the moments we have left." * Brenda Peynado, author of "The Rock Eaters" * "Novels this haunting, this unsettling, are rarely delivered with the poetic grace on display in Sleepaway. Sweet lord-I was not ready. In the tradition of Saramago's Blindness, Sleepaway is as insightful as it is entertaining, and ultimately succeeds both as a post-pandemic metaphor and a page-turner. Renowned poet Kevin Prufer has created a novel that will grip the reader from its opening and continue to resonate long after its haunting last line is read." * Mat Johnson, author of "Pym" and "Invisible Things" * "An incurable, inexplicable condition brings humanity to the breaking point in Kevin Prufer's novel . . . . Sleepaway is a haunting story about how people deal with upheaval, loss, and the threat of imminent, unnatural death." * Foreword Reviews * "Renowned poet Prufer's debut novel is an excellent, slow-moving apocalyptic narrative. . . . Constantly intriguing, this a superbly original parable about the recent collective experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic." * Booklist * "This slim, artful novel by Prufer, a poet, imagines a world consumed by a peculiar viral phenomenon. . . . Though Prufer doesn't attempt to deliver a clear message about society in a crisis, the book is suffused with anxiety over our collective inability to respond cohesively to collective ills. A taut and piercing dystopian tale." * Kirkus Reviews * "Novels tend to portray dystopia as a messy, noisy business. Prufer's slim dystopian novel, Sleepaway, pursues a different kind of action. The terror in this book-a small-press gem released this year that deserves more attention-is that the depth of the crisis isn't certain. Instead of abject peril, humanity is thrust into a state of anxiety, like being stuck in the middle of a wobbly bridge. . . . Prufer is a poet, and he approaches the nightmarish scenario in Sleepaway, his debut novel, with patient lyricism, not the manic energy of a thriller." * Los Angeles Times * "In his debut novel, Sleepaway, Kevin Prufer brings beautiful language and poetic tension to the page, along with a tight, dystopic plot and originally drawn characters. . . . [Prufer] has given us a tender, thoughtful, and descriptive story." * Good River Review * Silver Winner, Fiction: Fantasy/SciFi/Horror/Paranormal * Midwest Book Awards * Runner Up * The AWP James Alan McPherson Award for the Novel * Bronze Winner, Literary (Adult Fiction) * Foreword INDES Award * Honoree/Finalist, Best Novel of 2024 * Society of Midland Authors *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Produkt-Hinweis
Broschur/Paperback
Klebebindung
Maße
Höhe: 213 mm
Breite: 137 mm
Dicke: 15 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-946724-71-7 (9781946724717)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Kevin Prufer is the author of several books of poetry, including The Fears, The Art of Fiction, How He Loved Them, Churches, In a Beautiful Country, and National Anthem. He is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and the low-residency MFA at Lesley University. Prufer has also edited several volumes of poetry and, with Wayne Miller and Martin Rock, curates the Unsung Masters Series, a book series devoted to bringing the work of great but little-known authors to new generations of readers.
