THE SHAPELESS UNEASE

A YEAR OF NOT SLEEPING

SAMANTHA HARVEY

Jonathan Cape £12.99

Samantha Harvey is a much-admired fortysomething novelist who slept well until 2016, when she crashed into chronic insomnia. In her memoir she offers possible causes – the death of a cousin, the end of a marriage (not her own), the vote to leave the EU, the noise of traffic in her new home – and describes her attempts with suggested cures: medication, CBD oil, acupuncture, a visit to a CBT sleep clinic, a stress-reduction mindfulness course, dietary supplements, dietary abstinences – the usual suspects.

She describes the feral creature she becomes by night, tearing her hair, prowling her home, howling at the moon. There are frequent changes of register and the prose veers between first and second and third person as Harvey reaches for some perspective on herself which remains as elusive as her quest for sleep. Doctors are unsympathetic – ‘They use the phrase “sleep hygiene”, which suggests that if you can’t sleep then you are somehow unhygienic. A dirty sleeper.’

Johanna Thomas-corr in the Times characterised the book as part of a vogue for ‘memoirs that meander between personal history, essay, political musings, travelogue and the idiosyncrasies of their (usually female) author’. She suggests that ‘the form, or rather the formlessness, suits Harvey well… she manages to make a common problem feel familiar and mysterious.’ Helen Davies in the Sunday Times warned that readers looking for tips would instead ‘find an erudite companion to help them through the dark times’. Frances Wilson in the Telegraph hailed the memoir as ‘merciless and self-mocking’.