The Sleepwalker
Fiction
Doubleday Books
January 10, 2017
Advanced Reader Copy ebook
304
NetGalley
When Annalee Ahlberg goes missing, her children fear the worst. Annalee is a sleepwalker whose affliction manifests in ways both bizarre and devastating. Once, she merely destroyed the hydrangeas in front of her Vermont home. More terrifying was the night her older daughter, Lianna, pulled her back from the precipice of the Gale River bridge. The morning of Annalee's disappearance, a search party combs the nearby woods. Annalee's husband, Warren, flies home from a business trip. Lianna is questioned by a young, hazel-eyed detective. And her little sister, Paige, takes to swimming the Gale to look for clues. When the police discover a small swatch of fabric, a nightshirt, ripped and hanging from a tree branch, it seems certain Annalee is dead, but Gavin Rikert, the hazel-eyed detective, continues to call, continues to stop by the Ahlbergs' Victorian home. As Lianna peels back the layers of mystery surrounding Annalee's disappearance, she finds herself drawn to Gavin, but she must ask herself: Why does the detective know so much about her mother? Why did Annalee leave her bed only when her father was away? And if she really died while sleepwalking, where was the body?
Conjuring the strange and mysterious world of parasomnia, a place somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness, The Sleepwalker is a masterful novel from one of our most treasured storytellers."
My review:
Chris Bohjalian is one of my favorite writers, not just because he happens to be from my home state of Vermont, but because despite the fact that he has well over twenty books published, each one is different. We all know that even if you love an author's writing/books, they usually have a set formula/plot to them. Sometimes this doesn't matter, but sometimes it can get boring and mundane to pick up a new book by that author. Bohjalian always makes each of his books fresh and different, which I admire in a writer. The Sleepwalker did remind me somewhat of The Guest House in that there was a mystery involved, but the circumstances surrounding that mystery were completely different. The other great quality about Bohjalian's books is that you always learn a lot about a subject that you probably never thought much about in your daily life. Such is the case with all the information contained here about sleepwalking. The different types, the genetic aspect, the treatment protocols, the emotional and psychological effect it can have not only on the patient, but on their family. As always, the characters in this book are superbly written, and the story flows well, even when it does step back in time with background information. There is some gritty content within these pages, but other than not liking part of the ending (which I can't go into detail about here), this is another solid hit for Mr. Bohjalian.
A mystery surrounding a sleepwalking woman, this is another solidly written novel by one of my favorite authors. A gritty character study into the life of a family who is way more complex than the outside world views them.
I totally agree about Bohjalian's breadth...each one is truly completely diff. I liked this one and like how his last 2 books have been mysteries with an added layer of depth to them (Guest Room: sex trafficking, Sleepwalker: parasomnia)
While Midwives will likely always remain my favorite of his, he does know how to spin a good story, no matter what genre he picks.
I also love the he is able to present very different stories with each new book. This sounds like another of his novels that I'd really enjoy!
Hope you do get a chance to pick it up. Thanks for stopping by OnDBookshelf!