Sleeping Alone
Stories
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
In this collection of rich and textured stories about crossing borders, both real and imagined, Sleeping Alone asks one of the fundamental questions of our times: What is the toll of feeling foreign in one’s land, to others, or even to oneself? A cast of misfits, young and old, single and coupled, even entire family units, confront startling changes wrought by difficult circumstances or harrowing choices.
These stories span the world, moving from Maine to Sri Lanka, from Dublin to Philadelphia, paying exquisite attention to the dance between the intimate details of our lives and our public selves.
Whether Ru Freeman, author of the novel On Sal Mal Lane, is capturing secrets kept by siblings in Sri Lanka, or the life of itinerants in New York City, she renders the nuances of her characters’ lives with real sensitivity, and imbues them with surprising dignity and grace.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Freeman's delicate and vital debut collection (after the novel On Sal Mal Lane), characters examine their convictions and transform via relationships with others. In "Fault Lines," Mira, a Black mother from a Philadelphia suburb is presumed by her neighbors to be a nanny because her skin color is darker than her daughter's. In "The Wake," a girl named Silvia grows up in a New York City "mousehole" apartment, where she watches her mother, Rene, grieve over the death of a cult leader, her newly found spiritual practice "a riddle" that Sylvia "determine to solve." Don, a Sri Lankan cheese-making apprentice who lodges in 1969 Dublin with a woman named Madailein and her daughters in "The Irish Girl," learns about the city through Madailein, whose voice is equally admonishing and loving, and punctuated by a "nicotine-and-chocolate laugh." The story spans 33 years, and by its end, Don and Madailein "have grown toward each other." Freeman's charisma shines on each page of these beautiful stories. This is a treasure.
