Sleepaway

A Novel

By: Kevin Prufer

Narrated by: Kevin Prufer

A haunting debut novel from celebrated poet Kevin Prufer.

It’s 1984, and the invisible mists are falling, mists that cause people to slip into dreamless slumber—sleeps from which most, but not all, awaken. Those who do wake live in fear of the next mist, and the next, each a little longer and more dangerous than the last.

Alternating between the perspectives of a kleptomaniac waitress named Cora and her twelve-year-old friend Glass, Sleepaway depicts a small-town America turned alarming. This is a place where loved ones are lost to a state between life and death; where denial, delusion, and desperation take hold of those remaining; where dealers of the antisleep drug Eight Track disappear into shadows, and a murderous wannabe kingpin hunts for victims.

As civilization is shaved away one sleep storm at a time, people struggle to go on, making and losing allies and discovering new strengths and weaknesses. Cora sets out on an ill-fated road trip hoping to reclaim her sister’s love, only to discover a more powerful bond than blood. Glass, having lost his only parent to one of the first mists, searches for a stability he has never had and may never achieve. All the while, buildings rise outside town to cope with the mounting number of sleepers. Some see them as hospitals, others as repositories, and yet soon the air around them fills with ash.

An allegory for post-pandemic America, Sleepaway grapples with questions concerning friendship, race, and family amid the horror of inexplicable, arbitrary annihilation.

©2024 Kevin Prufer (P)2024 Acre Books

Critic reviews

"This slim, artful novel by Prufer, a poet, imagines a world consumed by a peculiar viral phenomenon. . . . Though Prufer doesn’t attempt to deliver a clear message about society in a crisis, the book is suffused with anxiety over our collective inability to respond cohesively to collective ills. A taut and piercing dystopian tale."

— Kirkus Reviews

“Renowned poet Prufer’s debut novel is an excellent, slow-moving apocalyptic narrative. . . . Constantly intriguing, this a superbly original parable about the recent collective experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

— Booklist

"A compelling, propulsive apocalyptic novel that plunges into the heartland of human complexity. Written in careful, spare prose, with intelligence and wit, Sleepaway raises important questions about how we deal with sickness and healing and, most importantly, about the human condition. What a book Sleepaway is!"

— Brandon Hobson, author of "Where the Dead Sit Talking"

strangely comforting apocolypse

I don't always like the author reading, but I like this one. It was as a beautifully rendered world I'll miss.