Sleep by Nino Ricci

by Nino Ricci

From multi-award winning author Nino Ricci comes a novel of devastating emotional power and intelligence, and often breathless suspense: the story of one man's descent into sleeplessness. 

     David Pace is a man who has it all--a successful career as an almost-famous academic, a wife blessed with both beauty and brains, a young son and a lovely home. But David's brain has begun to misfire. It shuts off when David is meant to be awake--when he's writing, when he's lecturing, when he's driving--but otherwise denies him any rest at all. Popping a variety of pills at an increasingly alarming rate, David struggles to remain alert, but his efforts become less and less effective, leaving his family in tatters and his career on the brink. Then, almost by accident, David finds himself with a loaded gun in his hands, and all of a sudden he feels tantalizingly, gloriously awake. The sensation, fuelled by a steady mix of pharmaceuticals, launches David towards the extremes of human behaviour, and as his choices become more and more abhorrent and the risks he is willing take more and more dangerous, David's sense of what is real, who he is, and what he is capable of slips terrifyingly out of reach.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Thriller, Ebooks, Canadian Literature

Hardcover

First published September 22, 2015

About the author

Nino Ricci’s first novel was the internationally acclaimed Lives of the Saints. It spent 75 weeks on the Globe and Mail‘s bestseller list and was the winner of the F.G. Bressani Prize, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. In England it won Betty Trask Award and Winnifred Holtby Prize, in the U.S. was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and in France was an Oiel de la lettre Selection of the National Libraries Association.

Published in seventeen countries, Lives of the Saints was the first volume of a trilogy that continued with In a Glass House, hailed as a “genuine achievement” by The New York Times, and Where She Has Gone, nominated for the Giller Prize. The Lives of the Saints trilogy was adapted for a television miniseries starring Sophia Loren and Kris Kristofferson.

Books in Canada commented that Ricci’s trilogy “so amply demonstrates the author’s tremendous talents that we would be foolish as readers not to follow him down whatever road he next chooses to follow.” That road led him to Testament, a fictional retelling of the life of Jesus. Hailed as a “masterpiece” by Saturday Night, Testament was a Booklist Choice for the Top Ten Historical Novels of the Year and a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Prize and for the Roger’s Writers’ Trust Award for Fiction and was a winner of the Trillium Award.

Ricci’s national bestseller The Origin of Species earned him the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Award as well as his second Governor General’s Award for Fiction. Set in Montreal in 1980s, the novel casts a Darwinian eye on the life of Alex Fratarcangeli, who is torn between his baser impulses and his pursuit of the Good. “This novel does so well, on so many levels,” wrote the Toronto Star, “that it’s hard to know where to begin tallying up the riches.”

Ricci is also the author of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a short biography that forms part of Penguin’s Extraordinary Canadians series, edited by John Ralston Saul. Ricci’s biography, according to HistoryWire, “provides the best, and best written, perspective on Trudeau there is.”

Ricci's newest novel is Sleep, out in the fall of 2015.

Reviews

[Jaidee (lost in Vegas for a few days) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars !!!

2019 Honorable Mention Read

A noxious man, his son and a gun.
Rabid Women created out of shame
Narcolepsy, drugs and dreams within dreams
Three cities, narratives and history both ancient and present
Sabotage, subterfuge, fucking and bullshit
A noxious man, his son and a gun.

[Jill Edmondson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated the main character. Very well written - some great word choices and beautiful sentences - but the story did not grab me in the least.

[Jean-marcel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I'll be damned....

This book surprised the hell out of me. It wasn't so much that I wasn't expecting to like it much, or that I didn't think Nino Ricci had a book in him that would appeal to my singular tastes, but rather that I really didn't anticipate it being at all like this.

I read Lives of the Saints in highschool, partly at my stepmother's recommendation and partly as part of a class assignment. I think my stepmother enjoyed it because her family is from a small Italian village and she really identified with the journey of the protagonist, who was living an innocent rural Catholic life until everything was uprooted and he had to move to Canada. The story was sentimental and sweet, maybe slightly autobiographical for all I know. Sure, it was a bit sad because the mother died at the end, but there wasn't really any indication of darkness or madness or clawing screaming desperation.

I don't think my stepmother would enjoy this book.
It's mean. It doesn't make you feel good. We spend the entirety inside the mental processes of someone slowly coming more and more undone and sprinting down a path of complete self-immolation. What's more, the suggestion is that maybe he was always kind of like this; maybe everyone in his life: his wife, his son, his colleagues, his family, all the women he beds, are just accessories, bitter rivals at worst; tools to keep him awake and focused at best. You can forget about anybody else mattering in this book, except for David Pace, and he's completely enthralled by not only the sleep disorder that causes him to pass out at random times and occasionally suffer fits; not only afflicted by the cocktail of pills he pops daily in order to stay afloat; but
utterly consumed by the "imp of the perverse". This guy can't open his mouth, it seems, without something awful, paranoid, twisted, or hurtful spilling out. A small part of himself reprimands him for this behavior, but there's never any hope that this voice will ever become dominant.

I'm not kidding. Almost every interaction involving dialogue had me wincing, cringeing or laughing awkwardly. It's quite a feat that Ricci was able to do this. Takes quite a lot of balls, really, to write a book like this that's so alienating, so ...well, ugly, especially, I imagine, if you are an esteemed award-winner. The people he wrongs never get their vengeance, they just kind of disappear from the narrative like the baggage that they are. David's one positive interaction with his young son is when he takes him to the gun club and teaches him to shoot. It's almost the single uplofting moment in this novel and the whole time he's wondering how he can make sure his ex-wife doesn't find out, and dimly aware that somehow he might be doing damage to his estranged child by showing him just how easy it all is.

David Pace wrote a book called Masculine History, exalting the glories of Rome and its great generals. it earned him academic acolaides and the hatred of many liberal scholars. He basks in this, but especially the hatred, because I don't think admiration is something he can really trust. besides, he's already been drummed out of one university on charges of plagiarism, and it's his penis that causes other sorts of problems for him. At least the philandering makes him feel awake. At least he feels that he's getting back at someone when he's able to thrust inside some intern or wide-eyed student or the secretly depraved wife of his American colleague. That colleague, by the way, is the only person I could imagine Pace feeling comfortable with in life, because they have the sort of relationship where even though they're supposed to be friends, they never say anything nice to each other; it's basically the sort of ongoing pals' relationship that works by the two guys constantly yelling putdowns and insults at one another. But even this comes quickly undone.

From the names of the drugs Pace doses himself with, the chapter titles quickly move onto the names of firearms. It's only natural that Pace's love of cock and conquest should transmogrify into the love of guns. Their sleek, strong efficiency. Their thrill of power. "Come now or I'll kill you", he says to Greg Borovic's wife as he holds the gun to her head during their illicit, filthy congress.

And so, it's only fitting that Pace should reach the end in the dirt of some ruined middle eastern city, with a gun to his head held by a screaming militant boy very much ready to pull that trigger and end everything. This is the moment when David Pace feels most awake. This is the moment his life has been waiting for.

If this all sounds great to you, you sick people, I suggest you read this. The writing's really good and somehow when I least expected it Nino Ricci snuck up behind me and succeeded in making me feel uncomfortable and weird. I think a lot of people will hate this but I assure you that the writing's just too good to dismiss it out of hand based on the ugly premise. I felt like an awful voyeur afterwards, and I'm not sure if that was the point or if it was something else entirely that I missed, but it's sort of haunted me for a week now.

Before I go, I'd just like to point out that this book is really full of unfortunate typographical errors. I'm not talking some bad scan or e-book here, but the actual print copy. There are substituted words ("if" for "it", "thrall" for "thrill"), doubled words, missing words. It's pretty sad, especially as the writing is so good that you kind of want to read it aloud, and these things just throw you right off. Also, while my compliments about the writing are very sincere, the dialogues tend to be extremely repetitive. I wont' be saying "For fuck's sake!" so much after reading it so often in writing over so few pages. It's a bad habit anyway and sounds silly. In a sense though I feel that the repetitive dialogues are just a part of Ricci's efforts to beat you down. It was bad in the beginning where David was arguing constantly with his wife and twisting around every little thing, but I think I soon learned to roll with the punches.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say I've actually seen an academic self-destruct like here, but I've spent enough time in those halls to understand it. There is something rage-inducing about the cloistered lives and trivial battles of lifetime scholars.

But...

As much as Nino Ricci puts you firmly into the headspace of his failing character, there's so much more to be said. The leaps in time drop you in and out of his life, each stage of which is dramatically more fallen apart than the previous. But what about in between? Why does David make the decisions he does? In a book about falling down, we need a little more of the falling to explain the splat onto the concrete.

And, yes, I get he's a classicist. From "life's cursus honorum" to the frequent evocations of Roman ruins, my own head still hurts a little from the incessant references.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual book, but I enjoyed it very much. The main character is an academic with a strange sleep disorder. One of the things I liked about the book is that although it is about a sleep disorder, it somehow reminded me of my own struggles with Anxiety Disorders, in the sense that it is a portrait of falling down. I like that there is a book out there that addresses what it is like to slowly fall to pieces. So many people don't understand mental illness, and act like it is something that people can just magically stop if they only wanted to stop badly enough. That, of course, is not the case.

So, this might sound weird, but, for me, this book was both a gripping & chilling read that pulled me into another world, and also an advocate of understanding (and removing) the stigma of mental health issues.

[Tina Siegel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll give Nino Ricci this: he is unique.

He's a very realistic - even gritty - writer, but there's always one unique-to-the-point-of-fantastical element to his books.

In 'Sleep', it's the titular biological state. Protagonist David Pace is a well-regarded and slightly pedantic professor of classical history. He was once a star in his field, but when an unspecified sleep disorder strikes him, his marriage, career, mind, and body begin to fall apart.

We follow Pace's descent into what might be madness, but comes off more as self-indulgent and self-destructive than anything else. Pace cannot delay gratification - he's like an adolescent whose just discovered alcohol or sex. This makes it difficult to sympathize with him

In fact, its hard to sympathize with any of the characters in this book. They're all a little shrill, a bit grating. That's not an entirely bad thing - it's kind of bracing, and preferable to the alternative. But it doesn't make for a comfortable reading experience.

Then there's Ricci's prose. He's a powerful writer, who knows the value of simplicity and verbiage both. The only problem is that I'm constantly aware I'm reading LITERATURE. I'm not sure why - I suspect, in this case, it might have something to do with the omniscient third-person narrator. But it's always there, niggling at me.

Still, 'Sleep' is a very engaging read. It's a terrific examination of one man's deeply damaged psychology, and the consequences of it. Not for everyone, but certainly worth a try.

[Lori Bamber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nino Ricci is a skilled writer, and this effort deserves more than two stars, but I'm rating it this way to forewarn myself against automatically buying future Ricci books.

Sleep is a cautionary tale: a terrible human being, David, loses his ability to sleep and to be fully awake, which would make a reader sympathetic if David wasn't a wholly terrible human being long before his sleep disorder. After 293 pages, the reader is not sure whether this terrible human being will live or die and doesn't care - she is just happy that the five or so hours she spent with this nightmare is now over.

There is no honest emotion in this book unless you consider the seven deadly sins to be emotions. Ricci keeps the point of view so squarely on the narcissistic protagonist that the other characters in the book are spectres, barely there, with scarce agency - the focus entirely on their own brokenness, which can be the only reason they allow the protagonist to be in their lives.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had such a hard time getting into this novel. I felt like the plot of this novel was too disjointed; it became distracting.

It didn’t help that I couldn’t get behind the protagonist; he was annoying. I’m really over these ‘broken men’ who think they are god’s gift to women.

It wasn’t all that bad though. I really enjoyed the parts when his sleeping disorder was front & centre and then the ending (the last chapter I guess). The rest I could do without.

This was a Goodreads Giveaway.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Thoroughly unlikable characters doing repugnant things at an ever accelerating rate. I'm giving it a generous 3 stars for two elements: an insightful look at the worst facets of academic politics and an interesting analysis of how gun fanatics crave and invent opportunities to act heroically with their precious weapons (and how terribly wrong that can go).

[Stefania Vani · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's well written. There is his trademark mastery of language and it is well researched but I didn't enjoy it as much as his other books. I kept thinking "I'm not the target audience" but it is still very readable.

[Marc · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a boring book. There were some sections that were slightly interesting but the remainder was enough to put me to "sleep". Maybe that was the author's intention?

[Alora · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow... what a waste of my time. Such a nothing book with a weird premise

[Pam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I avoid giving lower ratings unless I genuinely hate the book, but I couldn't bring myself to give Sleep the 3rd star when other books I've given that rating to earned it. Before I go any further, I want to say that I picked up this book completely at random. The cover I saw (rain on a windshield) gave it a bit of a thriller vibe. I was somewhat surprised, in a good way, when I learned about the protagonist's medical condition and wanted to learn more, but, sadly, that's not really what I got. So, this was a random pickup, but there was definitely a chance at getting a better rating.

First the good, the writing itself was well-done. I'd be willing to try another book by Nino.

Now, the bad. The protagonist is wholly unlikeable. He doesn't seem to have a single redeeming quality. That alone could have been alright if he had been intelligent, cunning, and intentional with his terribleness, but David, the protagonist, is just a bumbling mess of irrational impulsiveness. I couldn't even respect him as a 'bad guy.' I had no reason to emotionally invest in him or his slow-moving train wreck of a life. And, when you don't care about the characters you're going to find the book unappealing overall.

[Alphonsine Sefu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Il est difficile d'avoir de l'empathie pour le personnage principal et l'évolution de l'histoire m'a déçue. Le livre est bien écrit, par contre.

[Danielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I.... Did not like this. At all. The only reason I kept reading was because I was curious if it would get better, which--for me at least--it did not. I don't even know where to begin describing the things I didn't like, but I'll try.

The plot sounded interesting from the jacket, so I was looking forward to a descent-into-madness narrative and hopefully some shocking twists and crimes. I didn't get any of that. Firstly, David's sleep disorder was described in such vague terms that I found it too hard to believe. It screamed "made up" to such a point that it ruined the story for me--is it a lack of sleep or a problem falling asleep at the wrong times? How does it actually affect him? Then, there's the fact that from the get-go he was a horrible person. The sleep disorder didn't exactly drive him into madness, as I expected, it just seemed like an excuse for all the terrible things he did and the way he treated people. I can't remember the last time I loathed a character as much as him. This guy was an Asshole with a capital A, right from the beginning. I mean, the whole concept of him getting this massive life-changing diagnosis and hiding everything to do with it from his wife, then endangering his son on the road despite knowing this and then, to make matters worse, lying to his wife about it and blaming her for everything! This literally all happens within the first 20 pages and I probably should've given up on the book then.

It's not like the other characters were better, either. The men he encountered lacked any sort of personality, but my real problem lies with the depiction of women. First, there's Julia. There was room to give her depth and complexity, which was sort of hinted at for approximately a paragraph, but in the end she became a shallow caricature. Don't even get me started on the issues with this book's portrayal of her postpartum depression, which is basically summed up as a "zombie state" and treated with zero empathy. Men shouldn't be writing about these kinds of things without understanding what they're talking about! Overall, though, Julia suffered from the sexism which plagued every other female character. She's reduced to an over-controlling mother whose whole world revolves around her son (almost to an Oedipal degree, perhaps?), who--according to David, at least--abandons her career in favour of her family and the domestic labours of the house, and who is cold and snappy and testy with her husband. Susan Morales is reduced to her sex appeal, her ethnicity, and the fact that David ruined her life. Sounds familiar? That could describe Jennifer Lowe just the same. I actually hated how Ricci wrote these women, who are introduced as academics only to end up being silly, petty sex toys used and discarded at David's whim. Sophie was no better--a housewife with an apparent degradation kink who's given no story of her own and only serves to be the ultimate wedge between David and his friend. And finally there's Petra, who emobides the sort of "boy's girl" that men love to drool over. She can out-war-story any man, drinks heavily (side note: hate the briefly-mentioned alcoholism), and lets a guy ply her with drugs and drink before sleeping with him despite knowing he has a potential history of date-raping. Every single woman in this story is just a one-sided fantasy, here only to serve David and maybe some weird perverted reader. I don't know.

Now we move on to the book's handling of another issue: race. I absolutely hate how Jennifer was described. What is up with using "Indian" instead of "Indigenous" or "native" in a book from this century? And that's not to mention the clear way she's tokenized by the author, or David's initial attitude to her, before finding out she's indigenous, where he basically exoticises her because he assumes she's Asian. Also, the whole story involving the Black student in the States and David's remarks about her. First, he makes a joke about not being able to keep his hands off her, which is disgusting. Then, there's the episode (in his class, mind you) where he basically reduces her to her (potential) slave ancestors. The girl tells the dean that he was the first professor to be honest with her, but I can't imagine any person of colour taking that kind of comment very well. This takes me to the very end of the book, which for some reason takes place in some generic Arab city and reads like the equivalent of a movie scene with a yellow Oriental filter. This whole section was filled with stereotypes for literally no reason.

What else can I say? I wasn't a fan of the fact that a large part of the book was dedicated to gun worship. That was weird. Or the relationship between David and his brother Danny. That irked me especially, because I'm a twin myself. You can always tell who does and doesn't have a sibling, particularly a twin, based on how they write these relationships. I can tell you with certainty, me and my sister would never act to each other or think of each other the way David treats Danny. I've met many other pairs of twins in my life, and I've never witnessed this between them either. Gross misrepresentation of twins here. Also, the fact that the Holocaust was undermined twice. It was brought up only as a point of contention (I will never forgive this author for having David argue, even for a second and even if it was ironic or whatever, that it never happened) and as a point of comparison for Marcus's thinness, which is disgusting on several levels.

Oh, and how could I almost forget--the academia! So, here's the context. I'm a classicist myself, with some experience in the world of academia. When it was first revealed that David was a classicist, I was excited. Finally, representation of an academic field I knew about! How foolish I was. David is the most pretentious and least qualified classicist I've ever had the displeasure of reading about. No classicist I know goes around thinking of how things compare to the Roman world at all times. The throwaway, unexplained references felt like in-jokes, an IYKYK situation, meant to amuse those who know and exclude those who don't. It genuinely felt like the author going "oh look at me, I've done my research! I know what ancient Rome is!" but then really missing on important points. There's also the fact that the book kept mentioning David's "Masculine History" and yet I couldn't understand what it was about. Either fully develop whatever his theory is, or don't mention it. Also, the fact that Jennifer was surprised that David had translated some Petronius. Girl, what is shocking about that? If he's a trained classicist, especially at a professoriate level, he should fully be able to do that. Clearly the author doesn't understand what studying classics entails. And the plagiarizing in this book, my god. There are many things I could forgive, but David's obvious plagiarism, which occurs at least twice that I can remember, is not one of them.

So. My consensus is: not a fan of this.

[Debbie Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the beginning until the end, Nino Ricci held my fullest attention because of his breathtaking skill. He moves seamlessly between the past and the present, the interior and the exterior, what David (the protagonist) tells himself and what actually happened. Ricci is a master at creating deeply developed, complex characters that you believe in. I remain mystified as to why I continued to care about David because frankly he is a very unpleasant man. Although I knew he was an unreliable narrator, I couldn’t stop listening. Is it that I feel sorry for any person who cannot sleep? Insomnia happens to all of us at some time. If the insomnia were prolonged, any of us might become unpleasant people. This may explain my compassion for David, but I think the real reason is Ricci’s skill as a novelist. This is a book I will read again, maybe even several times. I highly recommend it, but be warned. It packs a straight-to-the-guts punch. Although it is too late for Christmas gift suggestions, this book would be perfect for anyone who thinks people ought to be allowed to carry guns.

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

The style of this book was unusual. It is written in two parts. The first section is divided according to what drugs the main character is taking and the second part is written according to what gun he was favoring.
The story jumps from different times in the man's life with great gaps between. David is a man with a serious and unusual sleep disorder, but more than that, he is a narcissist who is not very likeable and seems to be able to use people without qualm. His sleep disorder does play a role in his demise, but it seems that his downfall was inevitable in any case. I continued reading this story because the language and the circumstances were interesting but I really didn't like or care about the man, or what became of him.
I'm not certain who the book was written to entertain but it left me empty.

[Nino Pagliccia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned that sleep disorder and a passion for guns is a bad combination! I was taken more by the psychological reasons for David's sleep disorder, which I could trace back and understand, than by his interest in guns that had not direct or apparent explanation. Maybe there is no explanation to self-destruction and that is the point.
I felt all sorts of feelings for David Pace but not necessarily sympathy. His wife and son deserved more sympathy. However, his wife's nagging arguments, as Ricci reveals to us through the couple's dialogues, may have been a good contributor to David's final push to his downfall. His parents had no doubt molded David from an early age to be the insecure person he was.
I read all of Nino Ricci's books. I like his style and the way he develops the story and the characters. I do like this one and I recommend it!

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read "Lives of the Saints " years ago, but I think I was too young to fully appreciate it. I was intrigued by this book because the main character has a sleep disorder. (I have had issues with sleep since I was born).

This is mainly a character study of a really rather nasty history professor. He is not a likeable character at all. For some reason, I enjoy reading books about horrible people.

The book was quite dark and had a lot of powerful imagery and a strong reoccurring theme. I wasn't sure where it was going to go.

I wish that someone else I knew had read this, because I desperately want to discuss it.

Reading this made me want to read more of Ricci's work.

[Shannon White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is expertly crafted -- you may not like the subject matter or the direction of the story however there is no mistake about it, Ricci's writing conveys the story with precision.

He teases out David's downward spiral of destruction delicately making each step a small stretch of the elastic band inching forward. The tension builds throughout the book so the reader anxiously awaits the snap. Sleep makes you think and is not a book easily forgotten. For that reason alone, I think the average rating here in very unfair. Although the book ended in a direction that I did not foresee, I still enjoyed (if that is the correct word....feels wrong!) this book.

[Krista Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the beginning of the book. I think I continued to enjoy it until about 2/3 through, then realized that the main character's grappling with a sleep disorder and the destructive path he was on with drugs to cope and cover up the disorder and the ensuing downward spiral were suddenly forgotten by the author and the focus suddenly shifted. The final section of the book gave me the impression that Ricci couldn't figure out a cohesive way to make the character finally have his moment of clarity. I was disappointed in the end.

[Raimo Wirkkala · Rating 4 out of 5]

A disturbing character study of a disturbed man. The question is; how much of a self-destructive man's problem is a serious sleep disorder and how much is just his character, his nature? The challenge for the reader is putting up with the main protagonist.

[Shirley Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but protagonist is not likeable

[J.A. McLachlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The novel, Sleep, by Nino Ricci, is very well-written. The main character is complex and very different from anything I've read, not only because of his severe sleep disorder but also because of a complicated personality and past. The rest of the characters are not well-fleshed-out, but this is because the novel takes place so completely inside the protagonist's head that we only see anyone else from his extremely self-involved POV.
Ricci portrays a self-destructive man with long-standing anger issues which seem to go back to his childhood, although the reason is not really laid out. We learn that he never got along with his father and had a jealous, competitive relationship with his twin brother and his best friend/college roommate. This doesn't so much explain his anger issues, self-destructive behaviour, and inability to have a postive relationship with anyone, as it demonstrates that they existed long before his sleep disorder, which just made everything worse. While it is interesting to see the effect of sleep deprivation and consider the importance of this state we mostly take for granted, it is frustrating and unpleasant to watch the protagonist destroy himself, all the while conscious he is doing so and unable or unwilling to stop himself.

Ricci raises the question, is self-destructiveness and anger a part of us all, a part that most of us, most of the time, are able to control? For those who cannot control it, is it that they can't, or that they don't? These questions are made more substantive by the uncontrollable nature of his illness.

I get it, and I found it interesting, but I didn't enjoy this book. I don't believe we are unable to control our own behaviour or change our circumstances. It may be more difficult for some people than for others, either because of their inherent nature or their past or some terrible illness, but it is still a choice. And this protagonist, he made weak, impulsive and unethical choices all his life, choices that had devastating effects of others. While it may be interesting to see inside the mind of someone like this, it doesn't make me sympathetic; there are a lot of terrible diseases, and many, many people whose lives are wrecked by mental or physical disease, people who deserve it less and fight it harder.

What would have made for a far more interesting book, for me, would be to see a decent person, one who was previously cabable of having positive relationships and denying her or his negative impulses, struggle to resist the devastation this disease can wreck in one's life.

[Amberle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A making you think kind of book. I only gave it three stars simply because the main character drove me crazy. I didn't like him because of his behaviours but in the end, that is the point. I love this author's writing style as it is descriptive and makes you think hard about symbols, what it all means, so it was an "active read" for me in that it required effort not just cruising speed through a book. Again, the character was just such a turn off that it made it difficult for me to get through this book. This may seem superficial to some but for some reason, when I read a book, I kind of bond with characters and this guy, I just found him repellent. I tried to find some compassion for him because he truly had a problem, but I just didn't have it in me.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was incredibly strange, and at times not in a good way.
The main character is unrelatable and confusing in every way and the final chapter is pretty ridiculous.

I was confused by this characters 'sleep disorder' and no history was offered about who this man was (context) except for a 'sleep deprived', 'sexual fiend' (?). A character you had no empathy for in any way but were supposed to in some way? Again, just confusing!

The first longer chapter was actually pretty good but I was left more and more disappointed as the book went on.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well-written, but depressing. The ending feels inevitable and is the most satisfying part of the book. The final chapter, Beretta M9, is odd; I can't quite buy why David has gone to this place for research. That chapter especially also has echoes of some of Paul Bowles' stories.

[Kathy Stinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing was good enough to keep me reading about a most unlikable man but I’m relieved to be finished with it and with him. Too weird, violent, and without a shred of redemption (because how could there be) for my liking.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, the writing is fine, but the story wasn't compelling. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing did apart from bad decisions and drug abuse. Reading about someone's personal downfall is not a theme I enjoy. I gave up about two thirds of the way through.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting reading, unlike anything that I've read before. Not my favourite but I enjoyed that the material and concepts were different than what I typically read.