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Somnambule
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Science Fiction (2022)Au volant de son camping-car, accompagné de Flip, son fidèle pitbull, Will Bear sillonne les routes d'une Amérique ravagée par les coupures de courant et envahie de drones géants. En tant que mercenaire itinérant, il accomplit sous de multiples identités diverses missions, parfois au péril de sa vie : assassinats, pose d'explosifs, transport de prisonniers... Mais sa bonhommie naturelle et ses microdoses quotidiennes de LSD l'aident à garder le sourire.
Jusqu'à ce qu'une jeune femme l'appelle sur l'un de ses téléphones, pourtant intraçables. Elle prétend être sa fille biologique et se dit en grand danger. Est-ce la vérité ou un piège mortel ? Faut-il se débarrasser d'elle ou au contraire saisir cette opportunité pour enfin changer de vie ?
Jouant avec les codes du roman noir et de la dystopie, Dan Chaon nous propulse dans un monde dominé par la violence et la technologie - un univers à la fois si loin et si proche du nôtre.
Jusqu'à ce qu'une jeune femme l'appelle sur l'un de ses téléphones, pourtant intraçables. Elle prétend être sa fille biologique et se dit en grand danger. Est-ce la vérité ou un piège mortel ? Faut-il se débarrasser d'elle ou au contraire saisir cette opportunité pour enfin changer de vie ?
Jouant avec les codes du roman noir et de la dystopie, Dan Chaon nous propulse dans un monde dominé par la violence et la technologie - un univers à la fois si loin et si proche du nôtre.
384 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2022
283 people are currently reading
17288 people want to read
About the author
Dan Chaon
46 books1,490 followersDan Chaon is the author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing. His new novel, Await Your Reply, will be published in late August 2009.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 674 reviews
March 7, 2022
The most recent Dan Chaon (“Shawn”) novel, to be released mid-April, did not disappoint. Not as complex nor as fragmented as You Remind Me of Me, Sleepwalk moves like a film. I kept imagining Jesse Plemons as the laid-back and likable mercenary, and singular guide of this surprisingly emotional, speculative-fiction adventure. And this film-like feeling may have been deliberate, as the main character often disassociates and begins narrating as he watches his own life unfold.
The story begins by bringing us into the main character, Billy’s, work routine, which is clearly on the fringe of society. Turns out Bill lives completely off the grid! Or so he thought - until someone, somehow has tracked him down. And this someone has an odd story to tell, which just gets odder as we and William struggle to fill in the picture.
This novel has a different kind of puzzle-building feel from You Remind Me of Me, but it does have one. And as we learn the details of this world they feel half off-kilter and half familiar. There’s an eerie quality to what our protagonist is up against, both in what he expects (like a particular kind of traffic jam), and what he doesn’t expect (the main story), because the world he inhabits - one where morals become relative - feels too close for comfort. Sleepwalk could only take place in this context, and everything in this story dances on that boundary between marginal and familiar. The protagonist, Will, is told that a small choice from his past has snowballed into something huge, in part because he didn’t have all the facts about his own life. As he learns, he sees all the people and events from his past through a new lens. The story makes us question what we trust and what we don’t, while once again playing with the yearning for connection, specifically family connection. That yearning to understand ourselves through connection with family seems to be at the heart of both Chaon novels I’ve read.
Dan Chaon is a new-to-me favorite author, and I feel lucky to have won the Goodreads giveaway from Henry Holt Books.
The story begins by bringing us into the main character, Billy’s, work routine, which is clearly on the fringe of society. Turns out Bill lives completely off the grid! Or so he thought - until someone, somehow has tracked him down. And this someone has an odd story to tell, which just gets odder as we and William struggle to fill in the picture.
This novel has a different kind of puzzle-building feel from You Remind Me of Me, but it does have one. And as we learn the details of this world they feel half off-kilter and half familiar. There’s an eerie quality to what our protagonist is up against, both in what he expects (like a particular kind of traffic jam), and what he doesn’t expect (the main story), because the world he inhabits - one where morals become relative - feels too close for comfort. Sleepwalk could only take place in this context, and everything in this story dances on that boundary between marginal and familiar. The protagonist, Will, is told that a small choice from his past has snowballed into something huge, in part because he didn’t have all the facts about his own life. As he learns, he sees all the people and events from his past through a new lens. The story makes us question what we trust and what we don’t, while once again playing with the yearning for connection, specifically family connection. That yearning to understand ourselves through connection with family seems to be at the heart of both Chaon novels I’ve read.
Dan Chaon is a new-to-me favorite author, and I feel lucky to have won the Goodreads giveaway from Henry Holt Books.
June 11, 2022
Thanks to Henry Holt & Co. for this ARC for an honest review.
An easy 5-Stars. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ All books should be held to this high standard and not waste trees.
“This is an outrage. It would make a good tombstone epitaph.”
Very enjoyable satisfying easy read, as if Author Dan Chaon is telling you a story while we sit on his back porch drinking moonshine watching the sky change colors. You’re immediately lured into his den; there’s no boring long-winded chapters to endure nor useless descriptions no one cares about, which is exactly Bear’s character: gruff, immediate, matter-of-fact, strangely charming. He’s already 50 and lived through the “finding myself” stages that lures one into egotistical stupidity. I love extremely well-written and well-thought-out dystopian books because you can really learn a lot while getting a great read, and Dan Chaon completely delivers. This is a 5-star Keeper, so don’t ask to borrow. 😉. “Right on, Flip.” Now that’d be a great epitaph.
An easy 5-Stars. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ All books should be held to this high standard and not waste trees.
“This is an outrage. It would make a good tombstone epitaph.”
Very enjoyable satisfying easy read, as if Author Dan Chaon is telling you a story while we sit on his back porch drinking moonshine watching the sky change colors. You’re immediately lured into his den; there’s no boring long-winded chapters to endure nor useless descriptions no one cares about, which is exactly Bear’s character: gruff, immediate, matter-of-fact, strangely charming. He’s already 50 and lived through the “finding myself” stages that lures one into egotistical stupidity. I love extremely well-written and well-thought-out dystopian books because you can really learn a lot while getting a great read, and Dan Chaon completely delivers. This is a 5-star Keeper, so don’t ask to borrow. 😉. “Right on, Flip.” Now that’d be a great epitaph.
May 11, 2022
4.5 stars. I don't know what happened to Dan Chaon that now his books are basically made for me in a lab but I hope he never stops.
ILL WILL was one of my favorite books of 2017, I will still stick up for it at and I remain mad that it hasn't been more openly appreciated for the impressive work that it was. Somehow both meditative and gripping, it was all about how men avoid trauma in their lives and the havoc it causes them. SLEEPWALK is a totally different animal in nearly every structural way. It has a different setting and a different style, told in one very long mostly-linear view in the first person, where Ill Will had many parts, often jumped around between time and plot and character.
Our protagonist, Bill/Billy/Will/or whatever alias he is going by right now, is a simple man with a simple life. What that life is I will not spoil for you, and I heavily recommend you go into this novel as cold as possible. One of the book's chief joys is the slow slow rollout of the world it takes place in, which you see only a little at a time. It is very familiar and then suddenly it is not. We know Billy has secrets, but what they are takes a long time to figure out. We just know that Billy is not the kind of person who is easy to find. And someone has just found him.
This is a long odyssey of a book, one very strange road trip with a lot of stops before our final destination. Most of the time it's not clear whether there is a final destination or what anyone will do when we get there. But the truth unfolds bit by bit, to us and to Billy.
While this is quite different from Ill Will, the emotional center is surprisingly similar. It is still about the response to trauma, but the biggest surprise of all and one of its biggest delights is the way it finds hope and optimism and the smallest little light for the future in the bleakest surroundings. At one point early on a baby appeared in the story and I thought, "If this is going to be a book about how this man who's free of all ties suddenly learns to love because of this baby I am going to be so mad." The baby did not stick around but it turned out that I was very affected by Billy's growing capacity for emotion and care. It made me a little weepy, even.
I listened to the audio of this book and when it started I was very confused. Why was this book read by someone who sounded like a half-stoned surfer bum? (After the book I looked up the reader's other work and sure enough he does not normally read like this, it was indeed an artistic choice.) But as I got to know our protagonist I realized that actually it was a very smart approach that fits Billy's laid-back, let-it-ride, right-on-man attitude perfectly and immediately lets you see him in an unexpected light. I enjoyed the audio performance very much, and I love a thriller on audio where I am absolutely turned over with tension but also don't have to worry about losing the thread of the plot. Totally delivered.
This is such a sneaky genius book, it's not nearly as showy as Ill Will was, with its lovely prose and twisty folding structure. It has worldbuilding I'd put up against any science fiction or near future novel, absolutely the best I can remember. It feels so tapped in to current anxieties and imagined futures, making them into the everyday and mundane. Right on, Mr. Chaon.
ILL WILL was one of my favorite books of 2017, I will still stick up for it at and I remain mad that it hasn't been more openly appreciated for the impressive work that it was. Somehow both meditative and gripping, it was all about how men avoid trauma in their lives and the havoc it causes them. SLEEPWALK is a totally different animal in nearly every structural way. It has a different setting and a different style, told in one very long mostly-linear view in the first person, where Ill Will had many parts, often jumped around between time and plot and character.
Our protagonist, Bill/Billy/Will/or whatever alias he is going by right now, is a simple man with a simple life. What that life is I will not spoil for you, and I heavily recommend you go into this novel as cold as possible. One of the book's chief joys is the slow slow rollout of the world it takes place in, which you see only a little at a time. It is very familiar and then suddenly it is not. We know Billy has secrets, but what they are takes a long time to figure out. We just know that Billy is not the kind of person who is easy to find. And someone has just found him.
This is a long odyssey of a book, one very strange road trip with a lot of stops before our final destination. Most of the time it's not clear whether there is a final destination or what anyone will do when we get there. But the truth unfolds bit by bit, to us and to Billy.
While this is quite different from Ill Will, the emotional center is surprisingly similar. It is still about the response to trauma, but the biggest surprise of all and one of its biggest delights is the way it finds hope and optimism and the smallest little light for the future in the bleakest surroundings. At one point early on a baby appeared in the story and I thought, "If this is going to be a book about how this man who's free of all ties suddenly learns to love because of this baby I am going to be so mad." The baby did not stick around but it turned out that I was very affected by Billy's growing capacity for emotion and care. It made me a little weepy, even.
I listened to the audio of this book and when it started I was very confused. Why was this book read by someone who sounded like a half-stoned surfer bum? (After the book I looked up the reader's other work and sure enough he does not normally read like this, it was indeed an artistic choice.) But as I got to know our protagonist I realized that actually it was a very smart approach that fits Billy's laid-back, let-it-ride, right-on-man attitude perfectly and immediately lets you see him in an unexpected light. I enjoyed the audio performance very much, and I love a thriller on audio where I am absolutely turned over with tension but also don't have to worry about losing the thread of the plot. Totally delivered.
This is such a sneaky genius book, it's not nearly as showy as Ill Will was, with its lovely prose and twisty folding structure. It has worldbuilding I'd put up against any science fiction or near future novel, absolutely the best I can remember. It feels so tapped in to current anxieties and imagined futures, making them into the everyday and mundane. Right on, Mr. Chaon.
September 16, 2021
Dan Chaon honed his catchy thriller-esque atmosphere into a tense road novel reminiscent of Philip K. Dick's off-kilter weirdness and soft-dystopian Straw Dogs-style manhunts. An addictive read with dark undertones establishing the prescient consequences of social media, drugs, cloning, the morals of biological and artificial relations and other deep and relevant stuff. Yet, the close first person perspective focuses the lens on a flawed hero, whose descent into the Inferno is appropriately brutal. Somehow manages to come off as heartfelt amid the bleak and blasted remains of a landscape fertilized by American corpses.
August 3, 2022
This novel gripped me from beginning to end. It's a mysterious rare talent that comes along once in a while where a writer picks the perfect pace to tell a story and where the plot as it zings along feels utterly unique, even if it is evergreen. It made me wonder why I haven't read more Dan Chaon up to now.
June 16, 2022
Dan Chaon has just knocked it out of the ballpark this time. Sleepwalk – my new favorite of all his books – has everything: an opening that sucked me in from page one, fast-paced intrigue, an indictment of the ever-encroaching surveillance state and the mercenary corporate structure, and a yearning for true connection in a time when we are all becoming increasingly tribal and untrusting.
But most of all, it has Will Bear, certainly one of the most memorable and fascinating characters recently created. Will lives outside the grid (no Social Security number, no social media trail) and has had so many aliases that he thinks of himself as Barely Blur. He’s spent his life as a useful tool – perpetuating acts of industrial espionage, burning down the house of a potentially problematic blogger, bringing those who owe the organization he works for to “justice”. There’s nothing he won’t do, even, in rare cases, baby trafficking.
But that doesn’t mean Will doesn’t feel remorse. He rescued a pit bull named Flip from a notorious dog-fighting ring and he lavishes Flip with affection to turn him around. The baby? He dreams up a happy ending where the baby goes to a good family and is adored. He’s learned that people respond to flattery, so he makes sure to either compliment others or resort to his trademark “right on!” to show he agrees with them.
Early on, Will is driving in the Guiding Star (he loves his van, too) and suddenly all his burner phones go off at once. He’s untraceable – so what gives? Turns out it's a young woman named Cammie who claims to be his daughter (Will donated sperm when he was in his early 20s)…or is she? Is she one of many “Cammies” who have a nefarious goal in mind? Is she artificial intelligence or some tech-savvy hacker? The problem is, Will – who never knew who his father was and had a – shall we say – antagonist relationship with his mother, really wants to believe he has a daughter. And the plot takes off from there.
Sleepwalk is suspenseful, poignant, humorous, addictive, and at times, even tender. Underneath the compelling story, it asks important questions: is it easier to kill than to suffer the agony of empathy? What happens when our worship of technology and profit supersede our craving for connection? What does it take for us to make us wish for another life for another better version of ourselves? What does it really mean to be human?
I totally loved this one. Deep thanks for Henry Holt and Company for an early copy in exchange for an honest review
But most of all, it has Will Bear, certainly one of the most memorable and fascinating characters recently created. Will lives outside the grid (no Social Security number, no social media trail) and has had so many aliases that he thinks of himself as Barely Blur. He’s spent his life as a useful tool – perpetuating acts of industrial espionage, burning down the house of a potentially problematic blogger, bringing those who owe the organization he works for to “justice”. There’s nothing he won’t do, even, in rare cases, baby trafficking.
But that doesn’t mean Will doesn’t feel remorse. He rescued a pit bull named Flip from a notorious dog-fighting ring and he lavishes Flip with affection to turn him around. The baby? He dreams up a happy ending where the baby goes to a good family and is adored. He’s learned that people respond to flattery, so he makes sure to either compliment others or resort to his trademark “right on!” to show he agrees with them.
Early on, Will is driving in the Guiding Star (he loves his van, too) and suddenly all his burner phones go off at once. He’s untraceable – so what gives? Turns out it's a young woman named Cammie who claims to be his daughter (Will donated sperm when he was in his early 20s)…or is she? Is she one of many “Cammies” who have a nefarious goal in mind? Is she artificial intelligence or some tech-savvy hacker? The problem is, Will – who never knew who his father was and had a – shall we say – antagonist relationship with his mother, really wants to believe he has a daughter. And the plot takes off from there.
Sleepwalk is suspenseful, poignant, humorous, addictive, and at times, even tender. Underneath the compelling story, it asks important questions: is it easier to kill than to suffer the agony of empathy? What happens when our worship of technology and profit supersede our craving for connection? What does it take for us to make us wish for another life for another better version of ourselves? What does it really mean to be human?
I totally loved this one. Deep thanks for Henry Holt and Company for an early copy in exchange for an honest review
September 15, 2021
I first discovered Chaon ages ago, most likely due to his immediately proximity to the ever so excellent Chabon on the library shelves. Two very different authors, but both absolutely terrific. I loved Chaon’s books and binged out. And was very excited to get my grabby mitts on his latest through Netgalley.
The thing is, thought I knew what to expect and Chaon totally subverted all my expectations in the most awesome way. Instead of the heavyhitting slice of life dramas, he pivoted to produce this thoroughly excellent kinda sorta apocalyptic paranoid off grid adventure.
Mind you, there’s still plenty of drama. The main plot is technically dramatic at its base…a lone traveler (not just through the winding roads, but through life itself) finds out he might have a daughter and that she might be just one of the many offspring he’s got from his days of donating sperm.
But that’s too reductive of a description, too insufficient for the sheer wealth and splendor of the tapestry Chaon has woven with this book. There’s his spellbinding world building of the eerily plausible near future America, there’s the fascinating cast of characters that his multi aliased protagonist has to deal with, the past he is driving away from with every mile, the increasingly unreasonable and dangerous present, the uncertain future. The conspiracies, the twists, the ever so awesome doggo companion.
It’s such a terrifically texturized book, never a flat map, always a topographical one, of all of Will’s travels on and off road. And it’s such a pleasure to read.
There’s still all the emotional realism and engaging immediacy one might have come to associate with the author, but it’s playing out on a much larger, more intricately composed field. It’s a great book, it’s got all the things one looks for in a great book, outside even of the peculiar yet undeiniable multilayered charm of its protagonist. A perfectly immersive reading experience. The book you don’t want to put down, think about it when you have to, can’t wait to get back to. You know, that one.
I make my way through a lot of books. Tons, really. And Sleepwalk stood out easily as the best book I’ve had the pleasure to read in ages. Grab your bags, your best off grid gear, you're going to want to take this road trip. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
The thing is, thought I knew what to expect and Chaon totally subverted all my expectations in the most awesome way. Instead of the heavyhitting slice of life dramas, he pivoted to produce this thoroughly excellent kinda sorta apocalyptic paranoid off grid adventure.
Mind you, there’s still plenty of drama. The main plot is technically dramatic at its base…a lone traveler (not just through the winding roads, but through life itself) finds out he might have a daughter and that she might be just one of the many offspring he’s got from his days of donating sperm.
But that’s too reductive of a description, too insufficient for the sheer wealth and splendor of the tapestry Chaon has woven with this book. There’s his spellbinding world building of the eerily plausible near future America, there’s the fascinating cast of characters that his multi aliased protagonist has to deal with, the past he is driving away from with every mile, the increasingly unreasonable and dangerous present, the uncertain future. The conspiracies, the twists, the ever so awesome doggo companion.
It’s such a terrifically texturized book, never a flat map, always a topographical one, of all of Will’s travels on and off road. And it’s such a pleasure to read.
There’s still all the emotional realism and engaging immediacy one might have come to associate with the author, but it’s playing out on a much larger, more intricately composed field. It’s a great book, it’s got all the things one looks for in a great book, outside even of the peculiar yet undeiniable multilayered charm of its protagonist. A perfectly immersive reading experience. The book you don’t want to put down, think about it when you have to, can’t wait to get back to. You know, that one.
I make my way through a lot of books. Tons, really. And Sleepwalk stood out easily as the best book I’ve had the pleasure to read in ages. Grab your bags, your best off grid gear, you're going to want to take this road trip. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
June 9, 2024
I received an ARC from the publisher (Henry Holt) in exchange for my honest opinion.
__________
Whenever I jot down thoughts on a new Dan Chaon novel, I tend to say 'This is his best yet!' That could, of course, mean that he gets better with every book, or that he's not written a bad one - or both. Both apply here.
In giving us a story of the near-future, Chaon has also given us what seems to be his own personal statement about the state of things in America - and what that state is likely to look (and feel) like in detail before too long.
Visions of what's-to-come have been as labyrinthine as '1984' and as desolate as 'The Road'. But though we don't know the exact year in 'Sleepwalk', it doesn't really seem too far off from where we are right now. References are made to other pandemics and some of the expected results of climate change; the living landscape seems rather familiar - except maybe for things like the huge surveillance robots (which I haven't personally experienced but I would bet that certain groups of people have by now).
If what Chaon has described doesn't feel more recognizable to the reader (just recognizable enough to feel plausible), it's best to keep in mind that (for the most part) we're following one man's story and what's going on with him has got him so... let's say distracted... that real people... let's say more honorable members of society... are barely noticeable on the periphery. We don't really know how humanity in general is faring but people seem as scary as what we're already witnessing by ourselves.
The man we're following is - in his own words:
In the earlier part of the novel, Will is spending a lot of time in his car (it starts to feel like that one-man, Tom Hardy flick 'Locke') but, as you give yourself over to where Chaon leads, momentum seems to kick in in a way that can go unnoticed... and by then, in terms of page-turning, it's 'too late'. ... I read this book in a day.
As I recall, Chaon's last book ('Ill Will') was rather complicated - but, even though some key elements in this new work unravel slowly, this may possibly be his most straightforward novel. And perhaps his most humorous - darkly humorous, of course. My favorite scene vis-à-vis said humor involves something seemingly out of 'Island of Dr. Moreau'. As Will explains:
__________
Whenever I jot down thoughts on a new Dan Chaon novel, I tend to say 'This is his best yet!' That could, of course, mean that he gets better with every book, or that he's not written a bad one - or both. Both apply here.
In giving us a story of the near-future, Chaon has also given us what seems to be his own personal statement about the state of things in America - and what that state is likely to look (and feel) like in detail before too long.
Visions of what's-to-come have been as labyrinthine as '1984' and as desolate as 'The Road'. But though we don't know the exact year in 'Sleepwalk', it doesn't really seem too far off from where we are right now. References are made to other pandemics and some of the expected results of climate change; the living landscape seems rather familiar - except maybe for things like the huge surveillance robots (which I haven't personally experienced but I would bet that certain groups of people have by now).
If what Chaon has described doesn't feel more recognizable to the reader (just recognizable enough to feel plausible), it's best to keep in mind that (for the most part) we're following one man's story and what's going on with him has got him so... let's say distracted... that real people... let's say more honorable members of society... are barely noticeable on the periphery. We don't really know how humanity in general is faring but people seem as scary as what we're already witnessing by ourselves.
The man we're following is - in his own words:
a dreamy, cheerful henchman with my faithful hound, riding along, carrying out my various orders--transporting prisoners, delivering packages, planting explosives, spying, guarding abandoned factories, cleaning up millionaires' compounds after bloody massacres, assassinating minor people.Will Bear is a fixer for hire. As such, he's always on-the-go, ping-ponging around the country wherever he's needed. He doesn't seem to think of himself as a bad person; he's able to justify certain actions to himself convincingly. Still, he's reviewing his situation (over 50 and still damaged goods)... just around the time that someone in particular, some young someone from his past, begins... let's not say stalking... but attempting contact, with fierce determination.
In the earlier part of the novel, Will is spending a lot of time in his car (it starts to feel like that one-man, Tom Hardy flick 'Locke') but, as you give yourself over to where Chaon leads, momentum seems to kick in in a way that can go unnoticed... and by then, in terms of page-turning, it's 'too late'. ... I read this book in a day.
As I recall, Chaon's last book ('Ill Will') was rather complicated - but, even though some key elements in this new work unravel slowly, this may possibly be his most straightforward novel. And perhaps his most humorous - darkly humorous, of course. My favorite scene vis-à-vis said humor involves something seemingly out of 'Island of Dr. Moreau'. As Will explains:
Have you ever seen that movie called 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' with Elizabeth Taylor in it? I feel like I'm in the 'Planet of the Apes' version of that.When it comes to contemporary authors, Chaon has become one of my few favorites. It seems I've read everything he's published. What stands out about him is this: No one writes like he does. His voice doesn't echo anyone else's. It's like the comfortable voice of a questioning mind - at least, in this novel it is. Oh, and in this novel... quite often it comes down to 'a man and his dog'; and they have a great relationship... sort of like 'Travels with Charley'... gone wild.
September 4, 2022
An epic with a real destination. I found myself wondering if there was going to be a point to this Vonnegut-esque meandering mercenary’s wandering in some future time when things have reached a level of division that had never occurred to me. But Dan Chaon has a really strong sense of direction. Don’t worry. Just keep reading. He’s taking you somewhere worth going.
August 18, 2025
"Dan Chaon just keeps getting better, stranger, and harder to predict."
- J. Robert Lennon
That which you seek is also seeking you.
- Rumi
Sleepwalk is a road trip covering lots of ground. The journey starts in my home country of Utah with references of "Life Elevated", "This is the Place", "Greatest Snow on Earth". From Bear Lake at the Utah/Idaho/Wyoming border, we travel on I-80 and visit Little America.
Futuristic with old school recollections. The story includes creative inventions such as Cashew M&M's and Chocolate Chip Corn Dogs. Bizarre, Insane, Quirky, Humorous, Weird, Outrageous, Over-the-top. I love the chapter titles.
Dan Chaon is my favorite author. I wish he'd publish more often. Since Chaon publishes so infrequently, I have started reading Stephen Graham Jones, who as a university professor has become quite a prolific author.
Sleepwalk is Dan Chaon's shortest novel to date, even shorter than Await Your Reply, much shorter than Ill Will, and much more engaging than You Remind Me of Me.
Ready for a road trip?
Potential Tombstone Epitaphs: SUCKER, HarHar, "This is an outrage", Don't Turn Around, Food for Thought, "What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"
Related Films: Planet of the Apes, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Civil War (2024), Shane
Related Books: You Were Never Really Here, Goodnight Moon, Shadows, Upgrade, Pines, Wayward, The Last Town, Await Your Reply, Stay Awake, Shane
Favorite Passages:
Best Practices
In another life, I was a magician, a card sharp.
________
"You want to play for pennies?" I ask, and he gives me a hooded glare.
"How about," he says, "let's play for my freedom."
"Sheesh," I say, and pause in my shuffling. He's an exasperating sort of person. "Young man, I'm not holding you prisoner. I'm just your driver. You can go anytime you want," I say. "Open the door and walk out."
"Right. My feet are shackled."
"Those are my cuffs," I say. "They're expensive, quality material, and they will not go with you. If you want to leave, I'll take them off and you can be on your merry way."
"It's a blizzard out there," he says.
"So stay, then," I say.
________
"This is an outrage," I say.
This is an outrage: It would make a good tombstone epitaph.
Worst-Case Scenario
Life Elevated is the motto Utah puts on her plates.
. . . .
Some Utah license plates say: The Greatest Snow on Earth. Some say: This is the Place.
________
I've always had a fondness for Little America. It's a vintage truck stop, with a filling station, a 140-room motel, and a travel center where you can get some food and buy some trinkets. Legend has it that in the 1890s, when the founder of Little America was a young man out herding sheep, he became lost in a raging blizzard and was forced to camp at the place where the Little America now stands. I read about this on a plaque in the motel lobby when I was a child, and it caught my fancy, and even today I can practically quote whole pieces of that plaque, how, shivering in the midst of the blizzard, the young shepherd "longed for a warm fire, something to eat, and wool blankets. He thought what a blessing it would be if some good soul were to build a haven of refuge at that desolate spot."
Honestly, I don't know why I was so taken with the place. It was maybe mostly the billboard advertising they did - they had billboards all along Lincoln Highway and I-80, featuring a cartoon penguin with an outstretched, welcoming flipper, and the more billboards you saw the more you felt that the place was exciting and an Important Landmark, and possibly magical.
________
. . . I pass a family van with all their belongings in cardboard boxes roped to the top of their vehicle. The boxes look like they've seen some extreme weather conditions, and also they are spotted in a way that suggests that they've been passed over by some flocks of birds.
________
No doubt, a day of reckoning for mankind is coming, yet even for those of us who accept the inevitability of mass human death, there's still a cautious hope; we're waiting to see how Armageddon plays out, keeping an eye open for ways it might turn to our advantage. Even in the worse-case scenario, odds are that at least a few of our kind will struggle on long enough to evolve into creatures suitable for whatever new environment is ahead. I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I have faith in our species' stick-to-it-iveness.
________
I may only be going ten miles an hour, but I am a man hell-bent on a destination.
Small World
He's a heavily muscled dog, is Flip, with a stance like a wrestler - about sixty pounds, a pitbull mix, with black and white patches like a Holstein cow, and ice-blue Malamute eyes. He was a fighter once, before I rescued him, and he still bears some scars and some shotgun BBs are lodged beneath his skin, but generally he's a gentle fellow. He has some lingering post-traumatic stress: doesn't like motorcycles or uniforms, hates fireworks and the smell of tequila, is terrified of thunder and belts and pinwheel lawn ornaments. God knows what he's been through.
Steely Human Resolve
"Very funny." Six letters.
I lick the tip of my ballpoint pen.
HARHAR
. . . possible tombstone epitaph?
After my coffee and my puzzle, I wash out Flip's dish and make myself a breakfast smoothie. I like to be adventurous in this, and so today I have a carrot, turmeric, a clove of garlic, frozen mango slices, half a banana, apple juice, and a shot of whiskey. Blend the shit out of it, and then gulp it down! In another life, I'd have a food truck in Los Angeles that I'd call "Adventurous Smoothie," and my motto would be See how far I can go!
Amnesiascape
It's flat, gray-yellow sod all the way to the horizon, barbed-wire fences and transmission towers, kind of like the way amnesia would look, if it were a country.
_______
You have to wonder about these settlers of the Great Plains. These white people who in olden times killed the natives and laid claim to this dirt and stuck to it; who stranded their children and grandchildren with a birthright of dust. A collection of clapboard shacks with backyards full of unmown pigweed and junked cars and abandoned swing sets and withered, thirsty trees. Was the genocide worth it?
_________
Who am I to look down on them, after all, even if they are the offspring of murderers?
No doubt in the great scheme of things we are all of us the offspring of murderers. Right? If we weren't, we probably wouldn't be here.
Kickin Chickin
"3ApaBCTByNTe!" I say. "IIpowy npoweHNR 3a ono3AaHNe!"
"Fuck you, motherfucker," she says. "Don't you speak to me in your dirty Russian. I'm fucking Ukrainian, and I can speak English just as good as you, so take your Russian and shove it up your lazy ass."
________
A grimace of scorn so tight that it must actually be painful to wear . . .
Friend to Babies
I figure it will probably be fine. Even if the wee one does wake up, we can make do: I've got some coffee creamer in the camper that I can warm up. Dilute it a little with water and put it in an eyedropper.
I've always had a fondness for babies, and I think they can sense it because whenever I've been around them they get very calm. You could say I have a magic touch, they just naturally think of me as their friend. It's the same with dogs. I can't tell you how many times I've had to break into somebody's house and their dog just came up to me wagging its tail, not uttering a single bark.
Shitty Times Ahead for Some
At a certain angle, the tractors of semis seem to have faces. Dumb-looking -bovine - but patient in a doleful way. Sometimes animals and machines look more human than people do.
Birthfather
"So . . . I think you might be my biological father?" she says.
I'm still sitting in the parking lot of the Red Hot Truck Stop in the camper of the Guiding Star, and I can feel my mind unbuckling and unfolding into several minds as I sit there with the phone against my face. Dissociation, I think it's called, but I'm very focused. I'm aware of floating outside my body, slightly above and to the left, and I hear myself speak.
"Anything's possible, I suppose!" I say . . .
______
It's true: I did sell a lot of sperm back in my younger days, back when I didn't know how important privacy was. I'd thought I was anonymous with my Davis Dowty alias, and since masturbating was a skill that I'd gotten reasonably good at, I'd figured out a way to game the system so I could make a living wage traveling from clinic to clinic. It's not completely unlikely that a child might have been produced.
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom
. . . the feeling that I waws separated from the rest of the people of earth by an invisible wall, like a fish in an aquarium.
_______
Selling sperm was dumb, the way twenty-year-old boys are dumb, and maybe there was a kind of magical hope attached to it, too - like buying a lottery ticket or tossing a coin into a fountain.
_______
On the cover, there were drawings of a snake, a zebra, a penguin, a beetle, all the same size.
_______
. . . Mrs. Dowty's parrot said, "Hello! What's your name?" in a high insipid voice and then took a nut from his dish and bit is savagely.
_______
. . . a shy, pretty girl who wore her hair in a way that made me think that she'd had an unhappy childhood.
_______
It was strange, because it was she, the nurse, who I ended up thinking about rather than the porn magazine girls with their tawny unreal shapes and unmarked expressions. When I brought the test tube out and gave it to her I felt a flutter in my stomach. Her eyes were so sand and horrified that it seemed she must have known I'd been thinking of her. Afterward I sometimes thought that any baby that came from it would be as much that nurse's as it was my own.
_______
"You don't have kids of your own," she said.
"No." I smiled, hesitating because she made no move to take the box. I braced it against my hip. "No, not really." After a second I realized that was an odd thing to say. "None that I know of," I said, before I realized that this made things worse.
_______
At that time, before I became the Barely Blur, I was a fugitive from justice - wrongly arrested, imprisoned, and then institutionalized in a mental facility. I couldn't tell you what the charges were, only that I thought they were ridiculous, and I said so, and soon an officer was leaning down with his sharp kneecap on the small of my back and applying handcuffs to my wrists, and once I was seen as recalcitrant and resistant, it was beyond hope. Further protests landed me in the psychiatric care division of the Hopewood Memorial Hospital, where I was pumped full of Thorazine and left to drift for eternity.
I don't know how I escaped. There are only a few brief flashes: I remember clambering through cattails in an irrigation ditch, wearing nothing but pajama bottoms, shaved bald and a hundred pounds overweight, fattened by antipsychotics and lack of movement; I remember smearing dark-green pond mud into my hair and over my face and body; I remember that at one point I was trying to wash myself off in a gas station bathroom, and that I stole a pair of coveralls from the mechanic's garage.
_______
"Hush, hush, it's nothing, you're okay, my little one, it will all be all right."
But there was a great churn of loneliness that opened up in me - that longing we have for kindred that some cruel God must have built into us.
Signs Point to Yes
. . . I can't call Esperanza on one of those contaminated cell phones, so I trudge across the long parking lot toward where one of the last few phone booths in America is sitting in a patch of weeds.
______
Our entrance into this world was unregistered - no certificate of live birth, no doctors, no proof of existence. In fact, my mom had faked her own death when she was seventeen, so she was not even considered alive at the time I was born. That was her greatest gift to me.
_______
Over the years, I've gotten these glimmers, these ghosts have shown up and I've spent significant time imagining. What if, what if, what if.
_______
I imagine her as a crazy woman, this alleged daughter - with terrible staring eyes, maybe, with long strawberry-blond hair, wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, living in the basement of her adoptive parents' house, spending all her time on the computer, searching and searching, yearning but also truly insane, with the sweet-voiced fury of one of those kindly Murder Nurses you read about, the ones who will smile helpfully and give you a deadly injection of morphine if you get on their bad side.
Oubliette
"I said 'Yikes' because of the way you said it. You were like, 'I have your eyes,' and I got this image of you holding my eyeballs in your hands!"
______
"Wow," she says. "What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"
"That'd be a good tombstone epitaph," I say.
"You're so random," she says.
"I thought you wanted to be reciprocal," I say.
_______
"I'm not trying to insult you, honey," I say. "I'm just asking because - I lost my mind when i was about your age. Maybe it's hereditary."
. . . .
"You have . . . a mental illness?"
"Not anymore," I say. "I went insane for a while. But I got over it. I escaped."
______
"Northeast of Nashville," I say. "That'd be a good name for a men's cologne."
RIP in Peace
I haven't heard my mother's voice in over thirty years, but when Cammie made that sound it was like my mom lifted up out of the cell phone and gently bit me in the face.
_______
The collar of the T-shirt is bloody, the front of the pants stained dark from wetting himself.
I take a step back, careful, listening to the night sounds, all the bugs and frogs singing fuck me, fuck me, but I don't panic yet. I've never seen this kind of thing before, but I've read about it in the newspapers. A rash of vigilante killings cropping up all across the nation, corpses wrapped in packing tape with signs that detail their crimes: DRUG PUSHER or PEDOPHILE or RAPIST or what have you, often with a smiley face drawn across the head.
_______
"Halt!" says an electronically amplified voice. "Put your hand in your hair!" Then: "Wait. Put your hands in the air."
The Family Curse
I slow the Guiding Star and stare out. Look up at the constellations to try to see what direction I'm pointed in.
"It wasn't a big deal," I say. "Like I said, I got past it. Fully recovered my wits."
"What was the diagnosis?" she says.
"Who knows?" I say. "Let's call it the Family Curse."
______
"It's the ones they consider normal who are crazy," Cammie is saying solemnly, and again I picture her in a little soundproof basement room with wall-to-wall indoor/outdoor carpeting, or possibly Astroturf. "Only sociopaths are well-adjusted these days!" she says.
"Are you in a basement?"
"What?" she says.
"I'm just trying to get a visual of where you are right now. What you're doing while we're talking? I keep imagining you in a basement."
"I'm not in a basement," she says. "That's weird."
We come to the top of the hill, and it's a dead end. PRIVATE RESIDENT, NO TRESPASSING, says a handmade sign, and then another sign that says HO MADE APPLE BUTTER, and there is a home at eh back part of the lot but it's obscured by the stacks of salvage that have accumulated in the front: partial cars, antique farming equipment or possibly medieval torture devices, mannequins, computer monitors, toaster ovens, a limp windsock man, pieces of rebar and bundles of copper wire, in short, no easy way to turn the Guiding Star around.
More Favorite Passages in Comments
- J. Robert Lennon
That which you seek is also seeking you.
- Rumi
Sleepwalk is a road trip covering lots of ground. The journey starts in my home country of Utah with references of "Life Elevated", "This is the Place", "Greatest Snow on Earth". From Bear Lake at the Utah/Idaho/Wyoming border, we travel on I-80 and visit Little America.
Futuristic with old school recollections. The story includes creative inventions such as Cashew M&M's and Chocolate Chip Corn Dogs. Bizarre, Insane, Quirky, Humorous, Weird, Outrageous, Over-the-top. I love the chapter titles.
Dan Chaon is my favorite author. I wish he'd publish more often. Since Chaon publishes so infrequently, I have started reading Stephen Graham Jones, who as a university professor has become quite a prolific author.
Sleepwalk is Dan Chaon's shortest novel to date, even shorter than Await Your Reply, much shorter than Ill Will, and much more engaging than You Remind Me of Me.
Ready for a road trip?
Potential Tombstone Epitaphs: SUCKER, HarHar, "This is an outrage", Don't Turn Around, Food for Thought, "What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"
Related Films: Planet of the Apes, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Civil War (2024), Shane
Related Books: You Were Never Really Here, Goodnight Moon, Shadows, Upgrade, Pines, Wayward, The Last Town, Await Your Reply, Stay Awake, Shane
Favorite Passages:
Best Practices
In another life, I was a magician, a card sharp.
________
"You want to play for pennies?" I ask, and he gives me a hooded glare.
"How about," he says, "let's play for my freedom."
"Sheesh," I say, and pause in my shuffling. He's an exasperating sort of person. "Young man, I'm not holding you prisoner. I'm just your driver. You can go anytime you want," I say. "Open the door and walk out."
"Right. My feet are shackled."
"Those are my cuffs," I say. "They're expensive, quality material, and they will not go with you. If you want to leave, I'll take them off and you can be on your merry way."
"It's a blizzard out there," he says.
"So stay, then," I say.
________
"This is an outrage," I say.
This is an outrage: It would make a good tombstone epitaph.
Worst-Case Scenario
Life Elevated is the motto Utah puts on her plates.
. . . .
Some Utah license plates say: The Greatest Snow on Earth. Some say: This is the Place.
________
I've always had a fondness for Little America. It's a vintage truck stop, with a filling station, a 140-room motel, and a travel center where you can get some food and buy some trinkets. Legend has it that in the 1890s, when the founder of Little America was a young man out herding sheep, he became lost in a raging blizzard and was forced to camp at the place where the Little America now stands. I read about this on a plaque in the motel lobby when I was a child, and it caught my fancy, and even today I can practically quote whole pieces of that plaque, how, shivering in the midst of the blizzard, the young shepherd "longed for a warm fire, something to eat, and wool blankets. He thought what a blessing it would be if some good soul were to build a haven of refuge at that desolate spot."
Honestly, I don't know why I was so taken with the place. It was maybe mostly the billboard advertising they did - they had billboards all along Lincoln Highway and I-80, featuring a cartoon penguin with an outstretched, welcoming flipper, and the more billboards you saw the more you felt that the place was exciting and an Important Landmark, and possibly magical.
________
. . . I pass a family van with all their belongings in cardboard boxes roped to the top of their vehicle. The boxes look like they've seen some extreme weather conditions, and also they are spotted in a way that suggests that they've been passed over by some flocks of birds.
________
No doubt, a day of reckoning for mankind is coming, yet even for those of us who accept the inevitability of mass human death, there's still a cautious hope; we're waiting to see how Armageddon plays out, keeping an eye open for ways it might turn to our advantage. Even in the worse-case scenario, odds are that at least a few of our kind will struggle on long enough to evolve into creatures suitable for whatever new environment is ahead. I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I have faith in our species' stick-to-it-iveness.
________
I may only be going ten miles an hour, but I am a man hell-bent on a destination.
Small World
He's a heavily muscled dog, is Flip, with a stance like a wrestler - about sixty pounds, a pitbull mix, with black and white patches like a Holstein cow, and ice-blue Malamute eyes. He was a fighter once, before I rescued him, and he still bears some scars and some shotgun BBs are lodged beneath his skin, but generally he's a gentle fellow. He has some lingering post-traumatic stress: doesn't like motorcycles or uniforms, hates fireworks and the smell of tequila, is terrified of thunder and belts and pinwheel lawn ornaments. God knows what he's been through.
Steely Human Resolve
"Very funny." Six letters.
I lick the tip of my ballpoint pen.
HARHAR
. . . possible tombstone epitaph?
After my coffee and my puzzle, I wash out Flip's dish and make myself a breakfast smoothie. I like to be adventurous in this, and so today I have a carrot, turmeric, a clove of garlic, frozen mango slices, half a banana, apple juice, and a shot of whiskey. Blend the shit out of it, and then gulp it down! In another life, I'd have a food truck in Los Angeles that I'd call "Adventurous Smoothie," and my motto would be See how far I can go!
Amnesiascape
It's flat, gray-yellow sod all the way to the horizon, barbed-wire fences and transmission towers, kind of like the way amnesia would look, if it were a country.
_______
You have to wonder about these settlers of the Great Plains. These white people who in olden times killed the natives and laid claim to this dirt and stuck to it; who stranded their children and grandchildren with a birthright of dust. A collection of clapboard shacks with backyards full of unmown pigweed and junked cars and abandoned swing sets and withered, thirsty trees. Was the genocide worth it?
_________
Who am I to look down on them, after all, even if they are the offspring of murderers?
No doubt in the great scheme of things we are all of us the offspring of murderers. Right? If we weren't, we probably wouldn't be here.
Kickin Chickin
"3ApaBCTByNTe!" I say. "IIpowy npoweHNR 3a ono3AaHNe!"
"Fuck you, motherfucker," she says. "Don't you speak to me in your dirty Russian. I'm fucking Ukrainian, and I can speak English just as good as you, so take your Russian and shove it up your lazy ass."
________
A grimace of scorn so tight that it must actually be painful to wear . . .
Friend to Babies
I figure it will probably be fine. Even if the wee one does wake up, we can make do: I've got some coffee creamer in the camper that I can warm up. Dilute it a little with water and put it in an eyedropper.
I've always had a fondness for babies, and I think they can sense it because whenever I've been around them they get very calm. You could say I have a magic touch, they just naturally think of me as their friend. It's the same with dogs. I can't tell you how many times I've had to break into somebody's house and their dog just came up to me wagging its tail, not uttering a single bark.
Shitty Times Ahead for Some
At a certain angle, the tractors of semis seem to have faces. Dumb-looking -bovine - but patient in a doleful way. Sometimes animals and machines look more human than people do.
Birthfather
"So . . . I think you might be my biological father?" she says.
I'm still sitting in the parking lot of the Red Hot Truck Stop in the camper of the Guiding Star, and I can feel my mind unbuckling and unfolding into several minds as I sit there with the phone against my face. Dissociation, I think it's called, but I'm very focused. I'm aware of floating outside my body, slightly above and to the left, and I hear myself speak.
"Anything's possible, I suppose!" I say . . .
______
It's true: I did sell a lot of sperm back in my younger days, back when I didn't know how important privacy was. I'd thought I was anonymous with my Davis Dowty alias, and since masturbating was a skill that I'd gotten reasonably good at, I'd figured out a way to game the system so I could make a living wage traveling from clinic to clinic. It's not completely unlikely that a child might have been produced.
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom
. . . the feeling that I waws separated from the rest of the people of earth by an invisible wall, like a fish in an aquarium.
_______
Selling sperm was dumb, the way twenty-year-old boys are dumb, and maybe there was a kind of magical hope attached to it, too - like buying a lottery ticket or tossing a coin into a fountain.
_______
On the cover, there were drawings of a snake, a zebra, a penguin, a beetle, all the same size.
_______
. . . Mrs. Dowty's parrot said, "Hello! What's your name?" in a high insipid voice and then took a nut from his dish and bit is savagely.
_______
. . . a shy, pretty girl who wore her hair in a way that made me think that she'd had an unhappy childhood.
_______
It was strange, because it was she, the nurse, who I ended up thinking about rather than the porn magazine girls with their tawny unreal shapes and unmarked expressions. When I brought the test tube out and gave it to her I felt a flutter in my stomach. Her eyes were so sand and horrified that it seemed she must have known I'd been thinking of her. Afterward I sometimes thought that any baby that came from it would be as much that nurse's as it was my own.
_______
"You don't have kids of your own," she said.
"No." I smiled, hesitating because she made no move to take the box. I braced it against my hip. "No, not really." After a second I realized that was an odd thing to say. "None that I know of," I said, before I realized that this made things worse.
_______
At that time, before I became the Barely Blur, I was a fugitive from justice - wrongly arrested, imprisoned, and then institutionalized in a mental facility. I couldn't tell you what the charges were, only that I thought they were ridiculous, and I said so, and soon an officer was leaning down with his sharp kneecap on the small of my back and applying handcuffs to my wrists, and once I was seen as recalcitrant and resistant, it was beyond hope. Further protests landed me in the psychiatric care division of the Hopewood Memorial Hospital, where I was pumped full of Thorazine and left to drift for eternity.
I don't know how I escaped. There are only a few brief flashes: I remember clambering through cattails in an irrigation ditch, wearing nothing but pajama bottoms, shaved bald and a hundred pounds overweight, fattened by antipsychotics and lack of movement; I remember smearing dark-green pond mud into my hair and over my face and body; I remember that at one point I was trying to wash myself off in a gas station bathroom, and that I stole a pair of coveralls from the mechanic's garage.
_______
"Hush, hush, it's nothing, you're okay, my little one, it will all be all right."
But there was a great churn of loneliness that opened up in me - that longing we have for kindred that some cruel God must have built into us.
Signs Point to Yes
. . . I can't call Esperanza on one of those contaminated cell phones, so I trudge across the long parking lot toward where one of the last few phone booths in America is sitting in a patch of weeds.
______
Our entrance into this world was unregistered - no certificate of live birth, no doctors, no proof of existence. In fact, my mom had faked her own death when she was seventeen, so she was not even considered alive at the time I was born. That was her greatest gift to me.
_______
Over the years, I've gotten these glimmers, these ghosts have shown up and I've spent significant time imagining. What if, what if, what if.
_______
I imagine her as a crazy woman, this alleged daughter - with terrible staring eyes, maybe, with long strawberry-blond hair, wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, living in the basement of her adoptive parents' house, spending all her time on the computer, searching and searching, yearning but also truly insane, with the sweet-voiced fury of one of those kindly Murder Nurses you read about, the ones who will smile helpfully and give you a deadly injection of morphine if you get on their bad side.
Oubliette
"I said 'Yikes' because of the way you said it. You were like, 'I have your eyes,' and I got this image of you holding my eyeballs in your hands!"
______
"Wow," she says. "What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"
"That'd be a good tombstone epitaph," I say.
"You're so random," she says.
"I thought you wanted to be reciprocal," I say.
_______
"I'm not trying to insult you, honey," I say. "I'm just asking because - I lost my mind when i was about your age. Maybe it's hereditary."
. . . .
"You have . . . a mental illness?"
"Not anymore," I say. "I went insane for a while. But I got over it. I escaped."
______
"Northeast of Nashville," I say. "That'd be a good name for a men's cologne."
RIP in Peace
I haven't heard my mother's voice in over thirty years, but when Cammie made that sound it was like my mom lifted up out of the cell phone and gently bit me in the face.
_______
The collar of the T-shirt is bloody, the front of the pants stained dark from wetting himself.
I take a step back, careful, listening to the night sounds, all the bugs and frogs singing fuck me, fuck me, but I don't panic yet. I've never seen this kind of thing before, but I've read about it in the newspapers. A rash of vigilante killings cropping up all across the nation, corpses wrapped in packing tape with signs that detail their crimes: DRUG PUSHER or PEDOPHILE or RAPIST or what have you, often with a smiley face drawn across the head.
_______
"Halt!" says an electronically amplified voice. "Put your hand in your hair!" Then: "Wait. Put your hands in the air."
The Family Curse
I slow the Guiding Star and stare out. Look up at the constellations to try to see what direction I'm pointed in.
"It wasn't a big deal," I say. "Like I said, I got past it. Fully recovered my wits."
"What was the diagnosis?" she says.
"Who knows?" I say. "Let's call it the Family Curse."
______
"It's the ones they consider normal who are crazy," Cammie is saying solemnly, and again I picture her in a little soundproof basement room with wall-to-wall indoor/outdoor carpeting, or possibly Astroturf. "Only sociopaths are well-adjusted these days!" she says.
"Are you in a basement?"
"What?" she says.
"I'm just trying to get a visual of where you are right now. What you're doing while we're talking? I keep imagining you in a basement."
"I'm not in a basement," she says. "That's weird."
We come to the top of the hill, and it's a dead end. PRIVATE RESIDENT, NO TRESPASSING, says a handmade sign, and then another sign that says HO MADE APPLE BUTTER, and there is a home at eh back part of the lot but it's obscured by the stacks of salvage that have accumulated in the front: partial cars, antique farming equipment or possibly medieval torture devices, mannequins, computer monitors, toaster ovens, a limp windsock man, pieces of rebar and bundles of copper wire, in short, no easy way to turn the Guiding Star around.
More Favorite Passages in Comments
July 9, 2022
This is the first Dan Chaon book I have read. According to an interview I read in the NYTimes, he is a fan of Shirley Jackson and so am I, so that was enough for me to pick up his latest novel. I thoroughly enjoyed reading his detailed descriptions of many of the characters. I felt myself nodding as I read, understanding exactly what type of person he is talking about. Here is a perfect example of one of his descriptions-….”to a matron with one of those beauty-parlor haircuts that conservative conspiracy cult ladies always seem to have, her face botoxed into a permanent sneer.” Isn’t that a perfect description?
However, the story meandered for far too long, and I lost interest about halfway through the novel. The writing is excellent. It just isn’t my cup of tea.
However, the story meandered for far too long, and I lost interest about halfway through the novel. The writing is excellent. It just isn’t my cup of tea.
November 18, 2021
I received a free e-copy of Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon from NetGalley for my honest review.
I always look forward to a book by Dan Chaon, he is a brilliant writer. His writing, once again, is brilliant and filled with wonderful characters. A story of dual time lines between past and present.
A psychological thriller that is a bit dark at times and hard to read due to some abuse and other graphic nature. It is a strangely odd yet interesting cat and mouse kind of read.
I always look forward to a book by Dan Chaon, he is a brilliant writer. His writing, once again, is brilliant and filled with wonderful characters. A story of dual time lines between past and present.
A psychological thriller that is a bit dark at times and hard to read due to some abuse and other graphic nature. It is a strangely odd yet interesting cat and mouse kind of read.
April 9, 2022
Full disclosure: I won a free ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
Bill Bear has had so many aliases over the years, that he thinks of himself as The Barely Blur. He makes a living by staying under the radar and doing odd jobs: assassinations, cleanup work, retrievals, deliveries. His life runs smoothly, until he finds out about the daughter he never even knew he had …
Sleepwalk is a novel of the near future. Although the year isn't specified (at least, not that I recall), it's clearly not far from our present era. It's just one or two plagues past COVID, one or two wars past Ukraine, one or two frontpage natural disasters past … you get the idea. We follow the Blur through an America very much like our own as he learns about his own past and possible future.
Both characters and settings ring true, and the novel moves at a brisk pace. I was in suspense right up through the end, wondering how it was all going to turn out.
This was my first Dan Chaon book. I now understand why so many people are talking about him. Highly recommended!
Bill Bear has had so many aliases over the years, that he thinks of himself as The Barely Blur. He makes a living by staying under the radar and doing odd jobs: assassinations, cleanup work, retrievals, deliveries. His life runs smoothly, until he finds out about the daughter he never even knew he had …
Sleepwalk is a novel of the near future. Although the year isn't specified (at least, not that I recall), it's clearly not far from our present era. It's just one or two plagues past COVID, one or two wars past Ukraine, one or two frontpage natural disasters past … you get the idea. We follow the Blur through an America very much like our own as he learns about his own past and possible future.
Both characters and settings ring true, and the novel moves at a brisk pace. I was in suspense right up through the end, wondering how it was all going to turn out.
This was my first Dan Chaon book. I now understand why so many people are talking about him. Highly recommended!
October 29, 2023
SLEEPWALK by talented bestselling author Dan Chaon is darkly funny, wild, crazy, and utterly entertaining!
I read (listened) to the audiobook when it came out and realized I failed to post my review.
It will be one of the weirdest and wildest audiobooks (books) you will ever read. The audio narrator, John Pirhalla (was exceptional) and a perfect voice for mercenary Will Bear (Mad Max), among other aliases. You will find yourself rewinding parts again and again.
FASCINATING!
I enjoyed reading Chaon's previous book, Ill Will and was excited to read his latest and he does not disappoint!
The narrator of this well-written tale is Will Bear ("Barely Blur"), a 50-year-old fixer/courier who lives off the grid and was hired to perform specific duties, and not many of them legal. He kills people.
He is working off some kind of debt incurred by his deplorable mother, he eventually murders as a contract killer and cleanup man. We get some funny flashbacks. She taught him to never trust anyone. He will have to put this one to the test.
On the road traveling cross country from one project to another, with his sidekick dog 60-pound pit bull named Flip- a former fighting dog (with PTSD) he also does plenty of daily micro-dosing of LSD, among other things to keep himself occupied.
In between all the adventures, he receives an intriguing call on one of his many old burner phones. Who has this number?
Her name is Cammie, a young woman claiming that she's his daughter via a sperm donation made in his youth and that he has many more offspring. She is curious and wants to know more about her father. They seem to enjoy their phone calls and he finds himself looking forward to her calls.
His boss, a shadowy organization called Value Standard Enterprises is worried about a security breach; how did she find him? Is she really who she claims to be? Is she an AI bot built to lure him into the open? OR artificial intelligence?
We also get a glimpse into the near future dominated by billionaires and their corporations, white Christian nationalists, religious cults, environmentalist and animal welfare communes, anarchist, and computer hacker collectives, and other identity groups.
Billy has a complicated backstory which is slowly revealed with flashbacks from present to past.
A quintessentially American journey, Will reflects on his past and why his sperm was used so often and the prices people paid to get it. This exploration involves bigger questions, about the obligations he has to his offspring, the meaning of family, and genetic identity.
Beneath the rough exterior, there is humor, tenderness, and human connection. Will is charming, and we can see this shine through when he starts speaking with his daughter on the phone.
If you love quirky road trip adventures, near-future dystopia meets literary fiction with a leading man who is a laid-back contract killer with a big heart—this one is for you!
What an imagination! The author dazzles.
A special thank you to #MacmillanAudio and #Netgalley for an advanced audiobook copy.
Blog Review Posted @
www.JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins |#JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4.5 Stars rounded to 5 ✨✨✨✨✨
Pub Date: May 24, 2022
May 2022 Must-Read Books
I read (listened) to the audiobook when it came out and realized I failed to post my review.
It will be one of the weirdest and wildest audiobooks (books) you will ever read. The audio narrator, John Pirhalla (was exceptional) and a perfect voice for mercenary Will Bear (Mad Max), among other aliases. You will find yourself rewinding parts again and again.
FASCINATING!
I enjoyed reading Chaon's previous book, Ill Will and was excited to read his latest and he does not disappoint!
The narrator of this well-written tale is Will Bear ("Barely Blur"), a 50-year-old fixer/courier who lives off the grid and was hired to perform specific duties, and not many of them legal. He kills people.
He is working off some kind of debt incurred by his deplorable mother, he eventually murders as a contract killer and cleanup man. We get some funny flashbacks. She taught him to never trust anyone. He will have to put this one to the test.
On the road traveling cross country from one project to another, with his sidekick dog 60-pound pit bull named Flip- a former fighting dog (with PTSD) he also does plenty of daily micro-dosing of LSD, among other things to keep himself occupied.
In between all the adventures, he receives an intriguing call on one of his many old burner phones. Who has this number?
Her name is Cammie, a young woman claiming that she's his daughter via a sperm donation made in his youth and that he has many more offspring. She is curious and wants to know more about her father. They seem to enjoy their phone calls and he finds himself looking forward to her calls.
His boss, a shadowy organization called Value Standard Enterprises is worried about a security breach; how did she find him? Is she really who she claims to be? Is she an AI bot built to lure him into the open? OR artificial intelligence?
We also get a glimpse into the near future dominated by billionaires and their corporations, white Christian nationalists, religious cults, environmentalist and animal welfare communes, anarchist, and computer hacker collectives, and other identity groups.
Billy has a complicated backstory which is slowly revealed with flashbacks from present to past.
A quintessentially American journey, Will reflects on his past and why his sperm was used so often and the prices people paid to get it. This exploration involves bigger questions, about the obligations he has to his offspring, the meaning of family, and genetic identity.
Beneath the rough exterior, there is humor, tenderness, and human connection. Will is charming, and we can see this shine through when he starts speaking with his daughter on the phone.
If you love quirky road trip adventures, near-future dystopia meets literary fiction with a leading man who is a laid-back contract killer with a big heart—this one is for you!
What an imagination! The author dazzles.
A special thank you to #MacmillanAudio and #Netgalley for an advanced audiobook copy.
Blog Review Posted @
www.JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins |#JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4.5 Stars rounded to 5 ✨✨✨✨✨
Pub Date: May 24, 2022
May 2022 Must-Read Books
May 20, 2022
SLEEPWALK by Dan Chaon was just okay for me. I find these kinds of futuristic stories hit or miss for me. This novel is about Will Bear, a fifty year old white man who lives off the grid, and is contacted by his unknown to him daughter. He has to find out if his daughter is real or AI trying to capture him. I liked the strong bond shown right away between Will and his rescue dog Flip. Along this wild ride we meet some more characters who are connected to Will even though he’s a loner type and we learn about his past. It can get kinda confusing what’s going on. One the one hand I can understand Will’s desire to connect with his daughter but it seemed in opposition to his entire past. I didn’t find his motivations believable so I wasn’t endeared to this character. This future world wasn’t clearly defined enough for me. I listened to the audiobook and I felt the narrator was a good fit for the character but the story wasn’t compelling. By the end I didn’t care what happened to Will or his daughter.
.
Thank you to Henry Holt for my advance review copy and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for my ALC!
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Thank you to Henry Holt for my advance review copy and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for my ALC!
August 21, 2022
I love Dan Chaon, and this might be his best yet. A ripping-good crime thriller set in near-future America, this novel actually has a lot to say about human nature and where we are headed as a species even while it's entertaining you to death. Loved it.
July 20, 2022
Right on!
Still thinking about this book... the writing and perspective was unique. Loved it
Still thinking about this book... the writing and perspective was unique. Loved it
May 30, 2022
What I love most about Dan Chaon is that his writing is impossible to define by any mere genre. His latest novel, SLEEPWALK, is no exception.
Whenever I come across a unique work such as this one, I attempt to give readers an adequate comp so that they can have a good starting point. As I was scrolling through the myriad of blurbs for SLEEPWALK, I could find only one that came close to what I experienced while reading it: FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS…if Hunter S. Thompson’s novel was set in a sort of apocalyptic future that looks like a strip-mined version of our current world if we continue along the path we are currently on. Chaon’s protagonist spends a good deal of the story strung out on LSD-laced mini bottles of Tito’s vodka.
The novel opens with Will Bear traveling in his custom-built motor home, passing a joint back and forth with a young Filipino man. Liandro is manacled at the ankles while Will delivers him to a pre-determined location that is given to him from one of the dozens of burner phones he has in his cabin. While on the road, they scan the desolate landscape of what was once the US and through different weather patterns and unsafe fallout from the dark sky above. Once he accomplishes his task, Will continues to roam the highways with his dog, Flip, as his sole companion. He chats occasionally with a band of “friends” who can guide him to food, shelter or repair work, as well as any updates on the deadly world around him.
The year is never given, and all we know of Will is that he is 50 years old, approximately 6’2”, quite stocky with a full beard and a ponytail. We spend a good deal of time in the past with his alcoholic, psychotic mother, who truly messed him up as a boy and set him on his current loner path. Chaon never spends any time describing how the world got the way it is now. We just know that the US that Will crisscrosses constantly has been ravaged by disease, famine and all sorts of natural maladies to the point that life is a pale shade of what it used to look like.
Will’s life will be completely rocked when he receives a call on one of his burners, using one of his many aliases, by a young woman calling herself Cammie. It turns out that back in college, Will had been talked into donating his sperm to make some side cash. Now, over 20 years later, Cammie claims to have traced her lineage back to his donation. As Will determines she knows a little too much about him for this to a complete scam, he continues to speak with her. She eventually lets on that she has been in contact with other recipients of his sperm and that the final tally of his offspring is over 160.
This is too much for Will to handle, so he seeks out Tim Ribbons, who became his legal guardian after his mother was killed in Alaska. Tim convinces Will that Cammie is a con artist and part of a sinister network that he must find, infiltrate and bring down by any means necessary. Oh, did I mention that Will is also a brutal mercenary killer when he needs to be?
SLEEPWALK is a wild ride. It’s an unputdownable novel that is never dull and so beautifully written that it is a simple pleasure just to get lost in the prose and a frightening new world that could resemble ours in the future. Will Bear is a character you cannot help but like. It’s time well spent just to be by his side for a few hours to share in his incredibly unique life.
Reviewed by Ray Palen
Whenever I come across a unique work such as this one, I attempt to give readers an adequate comp so that they can have a good starting point. As I was scrolling through the myriad of blurbs for SLEEPWALK, I could find only one that came close to what I experienced while reading it: FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS…if Hunter S. Thompson’s novel was set in a sort of apocalyptic future that looks like a strip-mined version of our current world if we continue along the path we are currently on. Chaon’s protagonist spends a good deal of the story strung out on LSD-laced mini bottles of Tito’s vodka.
The novel opens with Will Bear traveling in his custom-built motor home, passing a joint back and forth with a young Filipino man. Liandro is manacled at the ankles while Will delivers him to a pre-determined location that is given to him from one of the dozens of burner phones he has in his cabin. While on the road, they scan the desolate landscape of what was once the US and through different weather patterns and unsafe fallout from the dark sky above. Once he accomplishes his task, Will continues to roam the highways with his dog, Flip, as his sole companion. He chats occasionally with a band of “friends” who can guide him to food, shelter or repair work, as well as any updates on the deadly world around him.
The year is never given, and all we know of Will is that he is 50 years old, approximately 6’2”, quite stocky with a full beard and a ponytail. We spend a good deal of time in the past with his alcoholic, psychotic mother, who truly messed him up as a boy and set him on his current loner path. Chaon never spends any time describing how the world got the way it is now. We just know that the US that Will crisscrosses constantly has been ravaged by disease, famine and all sorts of natural maladies to the point that life is a pale shade of what it used to look like.
Will’s life will be completely rocked when he receives a call on one of his burners, using one of his many aliases, by a young woman calling herself Cammie. It turns out that back in college, Will had been talked into donating his sperm to make some side cash. Now, over 20 years later, Cammie claims to have traced her lineage back to his donation. As Will determines she knows a little too much about him for this to a complete scam, he continues to speak with her. She eventually lets on that she has been in contact with other recipients of his sperm and that the final tally of his offspring is over 160.
This is too much for Will to handle, so he seeks out Tim Ribbons, who became his legal guardian after his mother was killed in Alaska. Tim convinces Will that Cammie is a con artist and part of a sinister network that he must find, infiltrate and bring down by any means necessary. Oh, did I mention that Will is also a brutal mercenary killer when he needs to be?
SLEEPWALK is a wild ride. It’s an unputdownable novel that is never dull and so beautifully written that it is a simple pleasure just to get lost in the prose and a frightening new world that could resemble ours in the future. Will Bear is a character you cannot help but like. It’s time well spent just to be by his side for a few hours to share in his incredibly unique life.
Reviewed by Ray Palen
June 1, 2022
There's a moment, towards the end of Dan Chaon's dystopian novel, where the central premise for a lot of the story is revealed to be a scam and I realized that I was just along for the ride. Billy, or whatever you want to call him, is a man with many aliases. He makes his living driving around North America in a mobile home delivering people, sometimes babies, and objects of various kinds. His selling point is that he is unknown to authorities, his identity isn't in a single database. Oh, except he donated sperm when he was a lot younger, just to earn a few extra bucks. And now that one thing is causing him a lot of problems.
This novel is set in a near future that is similar to our own and also very different. It's where corporations call the shots, drones masquerade as Pokémon characters and civilization is collapsing. Billy isn't a good guy. He's a large middle-aged white guy doing whatever his employers ask him to and sometimes those things are very bad. He's also oddly likable and occasionally does the right thing, often against his own self-interest, like rescuing a pit bull from a dog fighting ring. As the novel progresses, it becomes weirder and weirder, yet somehow I was more and more invested in this guy and his faithful dog, just trying to figure things out before something bad happens.
This novel is set in a near future that is similar to our own and also very different. It's where corporations call the shots, drones masquerade as Pokémon characters and civilization is collapsing. Billy isn't a good guy. He's a large middle-aged white guy doing whatever his employers ask him to and sometimes those things are very bad. He's also oddly likable and occasionally does the right thing, often against his own self-interest, like rescuing a pit bull from a dog fighting ring. As the novel progresses, it becomes weirder and weirder, yet somehow I was more and more invested in this guy and his faithful dog, just trying to figure things out before something bad happens.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 7, 2022
A three-star "benefit of the doubt" rating for this one, although it could have gone either way. This is a fun book in that it's equal parts near-future sci fi and its own weird kind of noir. It was the noir part I liked. I'm still a sucker for Raymond Chandler (even though reading him now is really problematic); the rapid-fire color in the language is entertaining. Chaon has chops like that. And his glib-but-ruthless protagonist has more than a little Philip Marlowe in him.
Where this book falls down is in the story. It's all over the map (literally...I lost track of where we were multiple times, and the time it would take to traverse this much of the country in something that is close to post-apocalyptic America makes the multiple locations implausible). And in what has become all too common a sci-fi cop out, Chaon doesn't ever explain the "rules" of his world or how we got here. Billy, the protagonist, is my age and makes pop cultural references from our shared history, so his near-future must be quite near. But like so many in this genre do now, he counts on his readers to be as fatalistic and cynical as he is and simply nod along and say, "Oh, yeah. 50' robots are common and Mount Rushmore is radioactive rubble now, 'cuz America. That adds up."
Again, benefit of the doubt on this one. But it was close.
Where this book falls down is in the story. It's all over the map (literally...I lost track of where we were multiple times, and the time it would take to traverse this much of the country in something that is close to post-apocalyptic America makes the multiple locations implausible). And in what has become all too common a sci-fi cop out, Chaon doesn't ever explain the "rules" of his world or how we got here. Billy, the protagonist, is my age and makes pop cultural references from our shared history, so his near-future must be quite near. But like so many in this genre do now, he counts on his readers to be as fatalistic and cynical as he is and simply nod along and say, "Oh, yeah. 50' robots are common and Mount Rushmore is radioactive rubble now, 'cuz America. That adds up."
Again, benefit of the doubt on this one. But it was close.
February 21, 2022
Grateful for the opportunity to read this book in advance via NetGalley. Dan Chaon is one of my most favorite authors and SLEEPWALK was one of my most anticipated releases of 2022. It did not disappoint.
As in Chaon's previous work, there is a current of darkness that runs throughout the novel, which follows a many-aliased man as he criss-crosses a dystopian America performing tasks for the shadowy organization that employs him. It's a high-concept plot, but I found it easy to digest, especially as the pacing kept it moving along so smoothly. My favorite was the sly way he unveiled the state of the world—a mention of robots, for instance, as if the existence of such things were normal.
Right up until the last page I couldn't shake the feeling that there might be a big twist waiting somewhere just a little further out of view. The question of what's real and what isn't permeates everything, and it kept me guessing.
As in Chaon's previous work, there is a current of darkness that runs throughout the novel, which follows a many-aliased man as he criss-crosses a dystopian America performing tasks for the shadowy organization that employs him. It's a high-concept plot, but I found it easy to digest, especially as the pacing kept it moving along so smoothly. My favorite was the sly way he unveiled the state of the world—a mention of robots, for instance, as if the existence of such things were normal.
Right up until the last page I couldn't shake the feeling that there might be a big twist waiting somewhere just a little further out of view. The question of what's real and what isn't permeates everything, and it kept me guessing.
June 18, 2022
4.5 stars. It's darkly funny.
My Japanese review: https://youshofanclub.com/2022/06/18/...
My Japanese review: https://youshofanclub.com/2022/06/18/...
July 29, 2022
Highly recommend. I would call it a pre-apocalyptic road story. Calls to mind Pynchon and Vonnegut, with nods to Infinite Jest, Stephen King, and even The X-Files.
May 23, 2022
Read this if you like: Thrilling fast reads, shady pasts , short chapters, dystopian
Wow. This is a fast paced, strange, dark book. Our main character Will/Bill/Whatever of his alias is going to a road trip in future America. He mainly goes by the Barely Blur. He does random tasks as a mercenary. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. He is a big hearted henchman with a complicated and lonely past and an LSD microdosing problem. He spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady, often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog with posttraumatic stress, and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust. I was immediately attached to Will. He is a strange and fascinating man.
Out of no where he gets a call on one of his many burner phones from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter, Cammie. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations. He’s very suspicious of her but she needs his help. She’s in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers. Continuing to have any contact with her increasingly blurs the line between the people Will is working for and the people he’s running from.
This was a wild ride. It reads like a movie. I would love to watch this, for real. The characters were so well developed. The plot evolved in such an intriguing way. Highly recommend this book!
Thank you to Dan Chaon and Henry Holt Co. for the gifted copy!
Wow. This is a fast paced, strange, dark book. Our main character Will/Bill/Whatever of his alias is going to a road trip in future America. He mainly goes by the Barely Blur. He does random tasks as a mercenary. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. He is a big hearted henchman with a complicated and lonely past and an LSD microdosing problem. He spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady, often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog with posttraumatic stress, and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust. I was immediately attached to Will. He is a strange and fascinating man.
Out of no where he gets a call on one of his many burner phones from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter, Cammie. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations. He’s very suspicious of her but she needs his help. She’s in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers. Continuing to have any contact with her increasingly blurs the line between the people Will is working for and the people he’s running from.
This was a wild ride. It reads like a movie. I would love to watch this, for real. The characters were so well developed. The plot evolved in such an intriguing way. Highly recommend this book!
Thank you to Dan Chaon and Henry Holt Co. for the gifted copy!
April 19, 2022
Dan Chaon has become a favorite author of mine, through the years. I would read his grocery list. The man can write. He is extremely talented and it just gets better with each book.
I love his short stories. His novels I wish went on forever. That's how invested you get with the characters. He writes people that you don't want to stop engaging with.- People that you don't want to stop knowing when the books ends. I like that he threw a little magical realism in there. A little weirdness. That makes his stories special. I absolutely love the main character in this one.
I love his short stories. His novels I wish went on forever. That's how invested you get with the characters. He writes people that you don't want to stop engaging with.- People that you don't want to stop knowing when the books ends. I like that he threw a little magical realism in there. A little weirdness. That makes his stories special. I absolutely love the main character in this one.
August 19, 2022
Well, I really do not know how to describe this book adequately. Any of Chaon’s work I’ve read (I’m a fan) features troubled, paranoid protagonists and odd atmospheres, with inexplicable occurrences thrown in for good measure. We are surely in Chaon country with this one!
The protagonist is a large, shambling, hairy, 50-ish man who has been off the grid his whole life—his whacko mother deliberately never registered his birth, her “gift” to him—and he’s been making ends meet in a number of unsavoury ways, roaming North America in a camper van, alongside a rescued fighting dog, hired as a contractor by shadowy outfits. This is a first-person narrative, so let’s let him say it in his own words: “In the other life where I didn’t meet [daughter Cammie], I’d still be driving along in the Guiding Star, circling around and around the Northern Hemisphere,… a dreamy and cheerful henchman with my faithful hound, riding along, carrying out my various orders—transporting prisoners, delivering packages, planting explosives, spying, guarding abandoned factories, cleaning up millionaires’ compounds after bloody massacres, assassinating minor people. The usual.” Say what??!! He travels under many different aliases, but let’s call him Billy. There’s been a spell of mental illness in his past and he has a little LSD micro-dosing habit, so his grasp on reality is not always secure, and the reader can’t be sure if the things he’s experiencing are real or in the imagination of an ill and paranoid man. But here’s Billy, just tootling along as usual, when he gets a call on one of his dozen burner phones from a stranger who knows who he is and claims to be his biological daughter, a daughter he didn’t know he had. And thus begins a truly bizarre adventure involving vast conspiracies. I won’t say more—you really need to take this wild ride without knowing what to expect. I will say, though, that Chaon creates a marvel: just how does he make such a sympathetic character out of a damaged, dangerous killer whose past is littered with the truly awful things he’s done?
The protagonist is a large, shambling, hairy, 50-ish man who has been off the grid his whole life—his whacko mother deliberately never registered his birth, her “gift” to him—and he’s been making ends meet in a number of unsavoury ways, roaming North America in a camper van, alongside a rescued fighting dog, hired as a contractor by shadowy outfits. This is a first-person narrative, so let’s let him say it in his own words: “In the other life where I didn’t meet [daughter Cammie], I’d still be driving along in the Guiding Star, circling around and around the Northern Hemisphere,… a dreamy and cheerful henchman with my faithful hound, riding along, carrying out my various orders—transporting prisoners, delivering packages, planting explosives, spying, guarding abandoned factories, cleaning up millionaires’ compounds after bloody massacres, assassinating minor people. The usual.” Say what??!! He travels under many different aliases, but let’s call him Billy. There’s been a spell of mental illness in his past and he has a little LSD micro-dosing habit, so his grasp on reality is not always secure, and the reader can’t be sure if the things he’s experiencing are real or in the imagination of an ill and paranoid man. But here’s Billy, just tootling along as usual, when he gets a call on one of his dozen burner phones from a stranger who knows who he is and claims to be his biological daughter, a daughter he didn’t know he had. And thus begins a truly bizarre adventure involving vast conspiracies. I won’t say more—you really need to take this wild ride without knowing what to expect. I will say, though, that Chaon creates a marvel: just how does he make such a sympathetic character out of a damaged, dangerous killer whose past is littered with the truly awful things he’s done?
June 7, 2022
This is not the most coherent dystopian novel you'll ever read. It's impossible to discern from context the event which triggered the decline of civilization, and trust me, there aren't enough pushpins and balls of yarn in your house right now to map out the plot , . . and really, wouldn't you feel like kind of a dork making that trip to Target? Especially when "Sleepwalk" offers so many other pleasures aside from a straightforward or sensible narrative: there's the multiply-named assassin-for-hire narrator, who transcends the mannered quirkiness of so much crime and fantasy fiction to achieve a genuine otherness; there's Mr. Chaon's gift for description, which renders a decaying American heartland with a dull vivacity, if that's even possible; and ultimately there's just the hypnotically midtempo pace of the whole thing, which would be monotonous in another book but manages to work here as our hero wanders from bizarre experience to bizarre experience, depicting a fundamentalist Christian human trafficking ring and a chimpanzee sex slave with the same mild bemusement. I've read dystopian novels that oozed bitter irony. I've read dystopian novels that oozed doom and gloom. This is the first dystopian novel I've read that oozed . . . charm. What a unicorn.
November 30, 2022
This whole book is on drugs.
Just like the main guy is the entire story. You know, sometimes as you get to know someone more you like them less. And I really coulda done without knowing this guy. He made such a good first impression too. So funny. So in the clouds and oblivious. I loved his drugged out view of the world. It was hilarious.
And that was basically the whole first 100 pages was just him going about his business and saying funny things. No plot. Just drugs. The way I wanted it. But then we got some actual plot and flashbacks and I was confused and no longer so interested. I powered through anyways but it was less enjoyable.
It gets 2 stars anyways though, one for each of his epitahs that I found hilarious:
"This is an outrage"
"What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"
😂💀He was so funny
Just like the main guy is the entire story. You know, sometimes as you get to know someone more you like them less. And I really coulda done without knowing this guy. He made such a good first impression too. So funny. So in the clouds and oblivious. I loved his drugged out view of the world. It was hilarious.
And that was basically the whole first 100 pages was just him going about his business and saying funny things. No plot. Just drugs. The way I wanted it. But then we got some actual plot and flashbacks and I was confused and no longer so interested. I powered through anyways but it was less enjoyable.
It gets 2 stars anyways though, one for each of his epitahs that I found hilarious:
"This is an outrage"
"What do I have to do to get you to trust me?"
😂💀He was so funny
May 14, 2022
What an entertaining book this is! Yes, it's weird and yes, it's strange but it's also completely unique, surprising, touching and darkly funny. The main character, Willie, or whatever name he's going by at any given time, is one mean, tough guy but he has a kind heart and I couldn't help but care about him, despite all the horrible things he'd done in his life. The author does an excellent job of fleshing out this character, highlighting his sensitivity and the reasons why he's ended up as he has. And Willie's abused, mean, tough dog, Flip, was the final touch that grabbed hold of my heart.
Recommended. I won this book in a giveaway.
Recommended. I won this book in a giveaway.
September 12, 2021
I really loved mostly everything about this book. The storytelling was superb, the characters interesting, the writing easy to read. There were some uncomfortable passages dealing with animal abuse and such, they read gritty but real and packed a punch. Overall this is quite the madcap adventure story. Reminded me a bit of CD Payne’s Youth In Revolt only with a 50 year old main character.
Honestly I would love to see this adapted as a miniseries or something. A highly recommended read, but it may not be to everyone’s tastes.
My copy was provided by NetGalley for review
Honestly I would love to see this adapted as a miniseries or something. A highly recommended read, but it may not be to everyone’s tastes.
My copy was provided by NetGalley for review
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