Lisa Mcbroom asked Chris Bohjalian:

Recently I finished your book The Sleepwalker. You drew me in with a quote from Sylvia Plath my favorite poet. The question I have is you deal with sleepwalking in such a personal way... do you sleepwalk or is there a history of sleepwalking in your family?

Chris Bohjalian Yes, there is some sleepwalking history among us. But it is not severe and it was not the inspiration for the novel.

The novel had its origins when I was having lunch with a sleep physician. I wanted to understand what the brain is doing when we dream: delta waves, etc. He had just come from a patient who was a sleepwalker, however, and our conversation rather naturally went there. And I grew hooked. I knew I wanted to write about sleepwalking instead.

Now, I have a feeling that the moment when Annalee walks to the bridge had its origins in my subconscious -- and a memory of a specific sleepwalking experience I witnessed.

So, family history does enter in.

All my books have autobiographic minutiae like that. One other autobiographic tidbit in "The Sleepwalker?" I was a teenage magician like Lianna.

Thanks for asking, Lisa!

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