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Naked Sleeper: A Novel
Follows a romantic triangle involving a woman searching for her runaway father, her husband, and a married professor she meets in the country
235 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
6 people are currently reading
378 people want to read
About the author
Sigrid Nunez
34 books1,774 followersSigrid Nunez has published seven novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, Salvation City, and, most recently, The Friend. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Among the journals to which she has contributed are The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, Threepenny Review, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, Tin House, and The Believer. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies, including four Pushcart Prize volumes and four anthologies of Asian American literature.
Sigrid’s honors and awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the Rome Prize in Literature. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston University, and the New School, and has been a visiting writer or writer in residence at Amherst, Smith, Baruch, Vassar, and the University of California, Irvine, among others. In spring, 2019, she will be visiting writer at Syracuse University. Sigrid has also been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and of several other writers’ conferences across the country. She lives in New York City.
Sigrid’s honors and awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the Rome Prize in Literature. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston University, and the New School, and has been a visiting writer or writer in residence at Amherst, Smith, Baruch, Vassar, and the University of California, Irvine, among others. In spring, 2019, she will be visiting writer at Syracuse University. Sigrid has also been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and of several other writers’ conferences across the country. She lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 19, 2022
"Background is important," Sigrid Nunez tells us in her novel, Naked Sleeper. "Things happen in the country that would never happen in the city."
Nunez continues, "Things happen to people in strange places that would not happen to them at home. It isn't true that people who cross the sea change their skies but not their natures. We are different depending on where we are...Landscape matters."
As she seeks some kind of understanding about her own life as well as the life of her artist father who she is writing a book about, Nona's life seems to be unraveling. Is her seemingly selfish and self-destructive behavior simply part of the process? As Nona delves deeper and seemingly for no reason betrays her marriage, she is no longer sure she was ever happily married. At critical points throughout the novel, her entire life looks different. Nunez reminds us that background is important. As we look at what makes us who we are, it's not just physically where we are that's important. It's clear that there are other types of landscape which are equally if not more important.
When we are being most reflective, we are often very critical of ourselves. That doesn't always make for the most comfortable of reading. While I didn't always enjoy the book, it was well written and continually insightful. I will be reading more of Sigrid Nunez's work!
Nunez continues, "Things happen to people in strange places that would not happen to them at home. It isn't true that people who cross the sea change their skies but not their natures. We are different depending on where we are...Landscape matters."
As she seeks some kind of understanding about her own life as well as the life of her artist father who she is writing a book about, Nona's life seems to be unraveling. Is her seemingly selfish and self-destructive behavior simply part of the process? As Nona delves deeper and seemingly for no reason betrays her marriage, she is no longer sure she was ever happily married. At critical points throughout the novel, her entire life looks different. Nunez reminds us that background is important. As we look at what makes us who we are, it's not just physically where we are that's important. It's clear that there are other types of landscape which are equally if not more important.
When we are being most reflective, we are often very critical of ourselves. That doesn't always make for the most comfortable of reading. While I didn't always enjoy the book, it was well written and continually insightful. I will be reading more of Sigrid Nunez's work!
January 5, 2012
Naked Sleeper begins with the following passage: “Background is important. Things happen in the country that would never happen in the city. Things happen to people in strange places that would not happen to them at home. It isn’t true that people who cross the sea change their skies but not their natures. We are different depending on where we are.” The importance of never ignoring the sounds, scenery and past experiences that influence interpersonal relations is a refrain that presents itself in countless ways throughout this emotional tale of one woman’s attempts to understand her family history with the hope of freeing herself from its grip on her trajectory.
At the start of the novel, forty year-old Nona, who teaches English to new immigrants, has just returned to Manhattan after a month-long writing retreat at an old friend’s rustic estate in the serenity of rural Illinois. She is writing a book about her father, a brooding alcoholic painter who she barely got to know before being whisked off to California as a child, following her parents’ divorce. Her father, Shep Shelton, died when she was a teenager, leaving her with an itch to discover who he was and how his demons mirrored her own.
Nona and her mother, Rosalind, have a tempestuous relationship. During Nona’s teenage years, Rosalind was deeply depressed and distant, and failed to provide Nona with any emotional support. Although Rosalind and Nona have few things in common, Nona has always wished that they had a closer relationship. While Rosalind prefers to forget everything about her marriage and the time she spent in New York, Nona romanticizes her parents’ bohemian past, and the city that provided the backdrop to their lives. As Nona writes in her book, “It is strange to claim nostalgia for times and places one has never known, but I am not sure what to call this feeling of mine for the New York of before I was born, when my parents were newlyweds.” Rosalind wishes that Nona would leave the past alone, and claims that she will never read her book upon its completion.
It is quickly revealed that although Nona is happily married to Roy, who is kind and adoring to her despite her anxious nature and many quirks, she has been exchanging letters with Lyle, who she met at the retreat. At first she dislikes Lyle, a brutish cheapskate in the midst of a divorce, but once his daily love letters begin to arrive, she questions whether she is missing something in her own seemingly solid relationship. Without much regard for potential consequences, she puts her marriage in jeopardy by flying across the country to Tuscon to explore her feelings for Lyle.
Moments after her plane lands in Tuscon, Nona realizes that she has made a terrible mistake. Lyle is cold and judgmental, and their time together is strained and awkward. But when she returns home, she finds that Roy has also done some soul-searching during her weekend away and is unsure about whether the marriage is satisfying his needs. In marrying Nona, he has suppressed his dream of having a big family. Nona has always been afraid that she wouldn’t know how to be a good parent, because she hasn’t had any experience with good parenting models. The two separate.
During her separation from Roy, Nona arranges a meeting with Tim Bannister, her father’s lover at the time of his death. Tim is one of the most likable characters in the book. A resident of the West Village, he keeps a journal of all the people he has known who have died, many of whom succumbed to AIDS. Tim is at first reluctant to tell Nona about her father, who was a pretty detestable man with little regard for his family. Shep had once told Tim, “A family is like a noose around an artist’s neck.” But once Tim realizes that Nona is not sentimental about her father, they develop a rapport, which finally helps Nona understand the good and bad qualities of Shep. Although he reveals that she physically resembles her father, shares his super-sensitivity to humiliation, morbid fear of failure and insomnia, she can now begin to release herself from the hold that this mysterious man has had on her sense of self and place in the world.
The wandering third-person narrative style allows the reader to embrace the perspectives of these interesting well-developed characters as they struggle to separate their actions from the background. Nona finds solace in yoga, a practice which encourages her to detach. Her teacher tells her to “watch yourself as if you were someone else.” She embraces this way of dealing in comparison to psychotherapy, where she had always been scolded for being emotionally detached.
In one of my favorite passages, Roy, a music teacher, describes his distaste for the proliferation of background music. “The number of places you could go where music was not playing was getting smaller all the time; he supposed public librarires would be net. He was amazed at how willing people were to give up quiet. Once in a restaurant, when he asked to have the stereo turned down, he got dirty looks from everyone and someone said ‘That’s the saddest thing man, when people hate music.’ But how could people who loved music stand hearing it as background for every banal human activity. Why was it assumed that because he wanted a cappuccino he wanted also to hear this schlocky recording of the Four Seasons?”
The structure of this novel could be tighter. There are many leaps in time that seem unnecessary, and can be confusing. The ending feels abrupt, and maybe a bit convenient. The treat in reading this book is enjoying Nunez’s beautiful prose and spending time with these memorable characters, whose keen observations make the novel well worth reading.
At the start of the novel, forty year-old Nona, who teaches English to new immigrants, has just returned to Manhattan after a month-long writing retreat at an old friend’s rustic estate in the serenity of rural Illinois. She is writing a book about her father, a brooding alcoholic painter who she barely got to know before being whisked off to California as a child, following her parents’ divorce. Her father, Shep Shelton, died when she was a teenager, leaving her with an itch to discover who he was and how his demons mirrored her own.
Nona and her mother, Rosalind, have a tempestuous relationship. During Nona’s teenage years, Rosalind was deeply depressed and distant, and failed to provide Nona with any emotional support. Although Rosalind and Nona have few things in common, Nona has always wished that they had a closer relationship. While Rosalind prefers to forget everything about her marriage and the time she spent in New York, Nona romanticizes her parents’ bohemian past, and the city that provided the backdrop to their lives. As Nona writes in her book, “It is strange to claim nostalgia for times and places one has never known, but I am not sure what to call this feeling of mine for the New York of before I was born, when my parents were newlyweds.” Rosalind wishes that Nona would leave the past alone, and claims that she will never read her book upon its completion.
It is quickly revealed that although Nona is happily married to Roy, who is kind and adoring to her despite her anxious nature and many quirks, she has been exchanging letters with Lyle, who she met at the retreat. At first she dislikes Lyle, a brutish cheapskate in the midst of a divorce, but once his daily love letters begin to arrive, she questions whether she is missing something in her own seemingly solid relationship. Without much regard for potential consequences, she puts her marriage in jeopardy by flying across the country to Tuscon to explore her feelings for Lyle.
Moments after her plane lands in Tuscon, Nona realizes that she has made a terrible mistake. Lyle is cold and judgmental, and their time together is strained and awkward. But when she returns home, she finds that Roy has also done some soul-searching during her weekend away and is unsure about whether the marriage is satisfying his needs. In marrying Nona, he has suppressed his dream of having a big family. Nona has always been afraid that she wouldn’t know how to be a good parent, because she hasn’t had any experience with good parenting models. The two separate.
During her separation from Roy, Nona arranges a meeting with Tim Bannister, her father’s lover at the time of his death. Tim is one of the most likable characters in the book. A resident of the West Village, he keeps a journal of all the people he has known who have died, many of whom succumbed to AIDS. Tim is at first reluctant to tell Nona about her father, who was a pretty detestable man with little regard for his family. Shep had once told Tim, “A family is like a noose around an artist’s neck.” But once Tim realizes that Nona is not sentimental about her father, they develop a rapport, which finally helps Nona understand the good and bad qualities of Shep. Although he reveals that she physically resembles her father, shares his super-sensitivity to humiliation, morbid fear of failure and insomnia, she can now begin to release herself from the hold that this mysterious man has had on her sense of self and place in the world.
The wandering third-person narrative style allows the reader to embrace the perspectives of these interesting well-developed characters as they struggle to separate their actions from the background. Nona finds solace in yoga, a practice which encourages her to detach. Her teacher tells her to “watch yourself as if you were someone else.” She embraces this way of dealing in comparison to psychotherapy, where she had always been scolded for being emotionally detached.
In one of my favorite passages, Roy, a music teacher, describes his distaste for the proliferation of background music. “The number of places you could go where music was not playing was getting smaller all the time; he supposed public librarires would be net. He was amazed at how willing people were to give up quiet. Once in a restaurant, when he asked to have the stereo turned down, he got dirty looks from everyone and someone said ‘That’s the saddest thing man, when people hate music.’ But how could people who loved music stand hearing it as background for every banal human activity. Why was it assumed that because he wanted a cappuccino he wanted also to hear this schlocky recording of the Four Seasons?”
The structure of this novel could be tighter. There are many leaps in time that seem unnecessary, and can be confusing. The ending feels abrupt, and maybe a bit convenient. The treat in reading this book is enjoying Nunez’s beautiful prose and spending time with these memorable characters, whose keen observations make the novel well worth reading.
August 22, 2023
Whatever the subject matter, I will read anything and everything Nunez writes.
January 13, 2021
[14:30, 12-01-2021] Titia: Ik denk soms dat ik te weinig lees om cijfers te kunnen geven
[14:30, 12-01-2021] Titia: Maar het einde was erg goed
[14:31, 12-01-2021] Titia: En het boek erg levendig terwijl t over een verdwaald iemand ging
[14:30, 12-01-2021] Titia: Maar het einde was erg goed
[14:31, 12-01-2021] Titia: En het boek erg levendig terwijl t over een verdwaald iemand ging
January 23, 2022
Never fly to Tucson for a guy named Lyle.
September 25, 2025
rare Sigrid Nunez miss. damn that sucked
April 16, 2024
Im torn between a 2and a 3 star rating. It took me a while to finally finish reading. I bought it on a whim at the thrift store. Its not terrible but not captivating either. It kinda reminded me of Lily King's Writers & Lovers in that the main character is an older lady and the plot was slow and meticulous though I REALLY enjoyed Writers & Lovers. This book had some great overall themes but not enough to make it a 4 star. Despite all of this, I do want to read another book by Sigrid Nunez. I have a feeling she is a great writer just that Naked Sleeper wasn’t her very best work.
November 12, 2011
Great book, I really enjoyed this one. It felt real. I think there are times in many people's lives when we wonder if we have made the right decisions and other times when we know that we didn't. I related to this book.
Beautifully written. Even if there was no story to follow I would enjoy listening to the words roll through my mind.
Beautifully written. Even if there was no story to follow I would enjoy listening to the words roll through my mind.
January 13, 2012
Amazing read, at times I felt I was reading my autobiography - so many thoughts I've had but expressed so much better than I would ever be able to. Like a few other books I just happened to read this year because they were seemingly on a shelf just waiting for me to pick them up.
February 19, 2010
analytical musings of an unhappy life ...meh.
June 23, 2014
So does the protagonist ever actually -do- anything?
May 4, 2025
I would read this woman's grocery list. Fabulous!!!
May 25, 2023
While this probably is my least favorite Sigrid Nunez novel, it's still full of those classic Nunez observations and compelling, technically sound writing that still make it enjoyable to read. The ending wraps up a little too fast for me, and I'm not altogether sure of what I was supposed to make of the Roy chapters. But again, it's Nunez, so it's still very good.
April 13, 2019
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Poor Nona always searching testing never committing. Good thing she had some true friends. I liked the characters and the easy voice that directs you from one important place to another because place is very important.
September 2, 2024
Well, this is a book I was glad to put down. I love this author’s other works but this book was more rich/white/straight girl angst than I could stomach. All of the characters were unrelatable-especially the main one. Nunez is a beautiful writer, though, so it has its moments.
September 16, 2017
Within a curious plot, deeply astute observation on the inner lives of women, and their fraught interactions with one another, emerges.
Read
June 26, 2019I have the german edition: In Liebem Lyle
and the english edition: Naked sleeper
and the english edition: Naked sleeper
November 26, 2024
Sigrid Nunez is my new favorite writer. I love everything she writes.
November 17, 2025
Wow. Just wow. This book. It took a while for me to read because it truly did develop very slowly and gradually...until those last 11 pages! My jaw dropped! It took a bit for me to take in all that had happened and what Nona and Roy would decide...both separately as individuals and possibly as a couple. This one really made me think! And as with all Nunez' books I've read thus far, it was so very poignant! I'm sure this will prompt much rumination on my part in the very near future!
I highly recommend as a penultimate example of 'literary fiction', at least IMO!
I highly recommend as a penultimate example of 'literary fiction', at least IMO!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews