The Fiction Spot
A snapshot review of a book related to the Non-fiction Feature
Also in this Monthly Bulletin:
The Non-fiction Feature: Griftopia by Matt Taibbi
The Product Spot: The Boys (Amazon Prime show)
The Pithy Take
If Griftopia is about penetrating the murky realm in which power operates, then Sleep Donation is about how, even in organizations with the best intentions, murky realms proliferate. In an alternate version of Earth, there is an epidemic of sleeplessness, and “sleep donation” seems to help insomniacs. Trish, a recruiter for sleep donation, becomes consumed with worry about harvesting sleep from sweet “Baby A,” especially when, suddenly, “Donor Y” infects the nation’s sleep supply with a hellish nightmare.
Written in classic Karen Russell form–luminous, off-kilter, hugely creative, all wrapped in lush language–watching the protagonist travail the bleak landscape of hollowed-out morality in Sleep Donation forces the reader to wonder just how much of Russell’s inspiration is rooted in magical realism, and how much of it is rooted in reality.
‘How do we really know it’s safe for these people to donate?’ I ask Jim and Rudy. ‘We don’t know.’ ‘We can’t know.’ ‘That kind of epistemic murk is unavoidable, Edgewater…it’s unrealistic to expect perfection from any human institution, Trish.’
Sleep Donation
Author: Karen Russell
Publisher: Vintage
176 pages | 2020
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