The Sleepwalker
Chris Bohjalian
2017, 284 pages
Fiction
Analee Ahlberg is a sleepwalker whose affliction manifests itself in ways both devastating and bizarre. She has spray-painted the hydrangea bushes silver and has been seen walking along the bridge over the Gale River at night pretending to be a statue.
For the last four years through medication and the sleep center she has managed her behavior. Then one night she disappears. Her older daughter Lianna returns from college to help her father and younger sister Paige, a seventh-grade athlete, cope with her disappearance.
Her father continues to work but follows up on any clues on his own, annoying the police. Paige continually swims the river and the beaver pond behind their house looking for any sign of her mother. While Lianna talks to the police throughout the investigation, she begins to wonder about detective Gavin Rikert’s intense interest in the case and her growing feelings toward him. Reading through some emails between her mother and the detective she realizes they met at the sleep center and had an ongoing relationship. Is she falling for her mother’s killer? Is he a sleepwalker as well?
Their father signs the sisters up for testing at the sleep center to see if there are any signs of sleepwalking in either of them. Neither of them remembers hearing their mother get up during that night but both are worried enough to keep their appointments. What will the testing tell?
This book deals with a subject I knew little about and was curious. The author has done his research and it shows. The ending is a bit of a surprise but not unexpected. This book shows an interesting window into parasomnia.
Kathy DillConcord Public Library
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