With the first sentence in Sleepaway, Kevin Prufer engages the reader with a catastrophic event that is described briefly and is both familiar and strange: “The invisible mists were falling, fine as pollen, and soon everyone will sleep.”  The source of the mist is conjectured to be from a lab, from Russia, space fallout, chemicals, so it reminds us of Covid but actually occurs earlier and later than Covid and into the future. There is no cure, and though medicine may weaken the mists’ effects, that medicine is rare, and itself dangerous. Society has fallen apart in common ways, not enough food, not enough medical facilities, loss of family units, institutions, jobs, stress on the assumed basic values.  The situation is dire. It is also like the world we’ve lived in and still do. And yet, Sleepaway is positive, full of hope and even play. It delves into and elevates the nature and presence and promise of the creative spirit.

The setting is a small university town in the heartland of the United States. Though the mysterious mist creates the initial draw, the characters are the heart of the story, especially Glass,  whose sensitive nature is a driving force, and his two friends, who establish the normalcy of youth and life in the midst of chaos. Their survival is to root for, in the novel and elsewhere. The other main protagonist, Cora, becomes intricately involved in Glass’s plight. The community is family. Death and grief occur but do not dominate. In one scene we are reminded that “the world ending for you ain’t the same thing as the world ending.”

The real strength of Sleepaway is the uplift, the values laced throughout.  Most characters want to help others and do so within their ability. Time gradually seems to be one moment, everything accessible from or happening in that same moment. The structure lends to this concept, with chapter time shifts moving from the present to the past, characters whose minds fly forward and back; references that bring in so many other eras and conjectures.  Literature and experience, past and present, inform the human mind and body— the more the better.

I read Sleepaway in one sitting, captivated by its complexity and promise. There is, of course, also the beauty of language. This is Prufer’s first novel, but he is a prominent poet, a master of language.  He’s a broad thinking and compassionate observer in all his work, and blends forms, invents them. I look forward to what other worlds he creates.