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Title details for The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas - Available

The Sleepwalkers

by Scarlett Thomas
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
The scintillating new novel from the author of The End of Mr Y
Patricia Highsmith meets White Lotus in this compulsive and brilliant gothic thriller
One of the Daily Telegraph's '20 Best New Crime Thrillers to Read this Summer'
'Clever, emotionally resonant, packed with startling twists and dark turns and very funny indeed, this is fiction roaring on all cylinders.' Guardian
'Gloriously dark and tangled . . . clever . . . I highly recommend it.' Observer
'A dark, twisty, savagely humorous plunge into a cauldron of toxic relationships . . . as well as a mystery loaded with menace, this is a smart, layered, stinging look at power and its abuse.' The Times
'One of our most consistently surprising and inventive novelists, Thomas fashions here an ambiguous chiller worthy of Patricia Highsmith or Daphne du Maurier, with added comic bite' Daily Telegraph
'Through her bold storytelling, "The Sleepwalkers" becomes a work of peculiar, gonzo genius. ... Thomas takes a glamorous late-capitalist setting, with rosé and catamarans, and shreds, twists and warps it into a story that is surprising, humane and political to its bones.' New York Times
'Thomas tells her story with the craft and cunning of an Aegean sorceress. ... [S]he can make metafiction not just smart but fun. Once more she earns her place in a postwar British canon of playfully serious mavericks that runs from Muriel Spark and Brigid Brophy to Nicola Barker and Ali Smith.' Spectator
'Like a darker, funnier The White Lotus, The Sleepwalkers is horrifying in the best possible way. I loved every moment of it.' James Smythe

'The Sleepwalkers is brilliant, savage and hilarious. The voice is so strong and so distinctive from the get-go, so bold and pitilessly funny. There is no whingeing here, just a fearless takedown which I read through in a single streak of pure delight. This is Scarlett's best yet, and I don't say that lightly.' Bidisha Mamata
'The Sleepwalkers is never-endingly surprising and full of keen observations on relationships, politics, and art. Thomas makes real life so fraught with meaning, it feels hauntingly supernatural. A twisty Gothic tale of vertiginous depths and haunting power.' Sandra Newman, author of Julia
'This original thriller has plenty of surprises.' Good Housekeeping
'An attractive summer holiday read', Independent
Still reeling from the chaos of their wedding, Evelyn and Richard arrive on an idyllic Greek island for their honeymoon. It's the end of the season and out at sea a storm is brewing.
They check in to an exclusive hotel, the Villa Rosa, where the proprietor Isabella — a strangely intense woman of indeterminate accent — flirts outrageously with Richard while treating Evelyn with a rudeness bordering on contempt. Isabella tells them the story of 'the sleepwalkers': a couple who stayed at the hotel the year before and drowned in a tragic and unexplained accident. It starts to feel like the entire island is obsessed with 'the sleepwalkers', but what at first seems like a fun tale to tell before bed quickly evolves into a living nightmare.
Caught in a web of deception and intrigue, where nothing and nobody are quite what they seem, Evelyn and Richard discover that their island paradise may in fact be hell on earth and that their only means of escape is to confront dark truths about themselves and those they love.
Exhilarating, suspenseful, and subversively funny, in The Sleepwalkers Thomas takes elements on Daphne...

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 11, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781398528413

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781398528413
      • File size: 3292 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 5, 2024
      A couple’s five-year relationship implodes during their Greek island honeymoon in this gonzo epistolary thriller from Thomas (Oligarchy). The action kicks off with a furious, discursive letter from Evelyn “Evie” Masters to her new husband, Richard Lawson, ending their two-week marriage. Evie airs a litany of grievances, among them Richard’s failure to rebuff the advances of their hotel’s proprietress, Isabella. Evie also indicates that she senses something fishy about Isabella’s story regarding two prior guests, now known by locals as “the sleepwalkers,” who supposedly strode into the ocean one night and drowned. The missive, which ends mid-sentence, is followed by an equally scathing, bombshell-laden letter to her from Richard, who writes that he awoke in their hotel room to find Evie gone “without even leaving a note, as usual.” Additional letters and assorted ephemera (including audio transcripts, hotel guestbook pages, and notes scribbled on receipts) flesh out a dark mystery related to the eponymous “sleepwalkers” that emerges from the correspondence’s periphery before gradually taking center stage. Readers seeking definitive answers may be left wanting, but Thomas cleverly utilizes structure and style to tell a multifaceted tale stocked with boldly drawn, irreparably damaged characters. It’s a smart and soapy delight. Agent: Dan Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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