Sleep Donation
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Newly illustrated and available for the first time in years, a haunting novella from the uncannily imaginative author of the national bestsellers Swamplandia! and Orange World: the story of a deadly insomnia epidemic and the lengths one woman will go to to fight it.
Trish Edgewater is the Slumber Corps' top recruiter. On the phone, at a specially organized Sleep Drive, even in a supermarket parking lot: Trish can get even the most reluctant healthy dreamer to donate sleep to an insomniac in crisis--one of hundreds of thousands of people who have totally lost the ability to sleep. Trish cries, she shakes, she shows potential donors a picture of her deceased sister, Dori: one of the first victims of the lethal insomnia plague that has swept the globe.
Run by the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers, the Slumber Corps is at the forefront of the fight against this deadly new disease. But when Trish is confronted by "Baby A," the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious "Donor Y," whose horrific infectious nightmares are threatening to sweep through the precious sleep supply, her faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter.
Fully illustrated with dreamy evocations of Russell's singular imagination and featuring a brand-new "Nightmare Appendix," Sleep Donation will keep readers up long into the night and long after haunt their dreams.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 2013 Macarthur Fellow Russell's (Swamplandia!) speculative novella, a mysterious "insomnia epidemic" has become a national concern, generating 24/7 news coverage, as well as ubiquitous "Night Worlds" and sleep wards. Fortunately, a technology has also been developed whereby machines can siphon healthy sleep from donators for transfer to those in need. Trish Edgewater, Pennsylvania-based Slumber Corps' oldest and most valued volunteer, uses her deceased sister Dori's story of "terminal insomnia" to frighten potential donors into offering up their contributions. Her top recruit is the glorified Baby A, the infant daughter of Felix and Justine Harkonnen. Both parents have granted the necessary signatory consent, but Felix makes it known that he opposes his daughter's copious donations while Justine insists that it is an honorable concession. When the "sleep blend" supply is contaminated by the nightmare sleep of Donor Y, matters are complicated even further for the Corps. People become increasingly afraid to donate, and many of those who have contracted the nightmare turn into "elective insomniacs" as Donor Y's nightmare is so hard to bear that it leads some to suicide. The story raises questions of ethical conduct, personal responsibility, and free will as Trish begins to second-guess her own "pitch" methods and discovers that her bosses, former CEOs Jim and Rudy Storch, have been outsourcing sleep on the black market. Trish is left to figure out whether or not to blow the whistle on her employers, and whether the consequences of such actions are worth it. Narrated by Trish, the book succeeds in conveying her internal conflict, but the short length leaves a number of questions unexplored, including the motives and background of the supporting characters. As a whole, the story fails to shed much light on the world around Trish, making this novella somewhat hollow.
