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The House of Sleep
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The House of Sleep Paperback - 1999

by Jonathan Coe

Like a surreal and highly caffeinated version of "The Big Chill", Coe's new novel brings together four students who first meet in college in the '80s. A decade later, they are haunted by sleep, or the lack of it, and reunite at a clinic for sleep disorders.

Summary

Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events; Robert has had his life changed for ever by the misunderstandings arising from her condition; Terry, the insomniac, spends his wakeful nights fuelling his obsession with movies; and the increasingly unstable Dr Gregory Dudden sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which must be eradicated .A group of students sharing a house. They fall in and out of love, they drift apart. Yet a decade later they are drawn back together by a series of coincidences involving their obsession with sleep - and each other...

From the publisher

Born in 1961, Jonathan Coe took degrees from Cambridge and Warwick universities. He lives in London.


From the Hardcover edition.

From the jacket flap

Winner of the Writers' Guild Best Fiction Award in England and the Prix Medicis in France
Like a surreal and highly caffeinated version of The Big Chill, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows four students who knew each other in college in the eighties. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events. Robert has his life changed forever by the misunderstandings that arise from her condition. Terry spends his wakeful nights fueling his obsession with movies. And an increasingly unstable doctor, Gregory, sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which he must eradicate.
But after ten years of fretful slumber and dreams gone bad, the four reunite in their college town to confront their disorders. In a Gothic cliffside manor being used as a clinic for sleep disorders, they discover that neither love, nor lunacy, nor obsession ever rests.

Details

  • Title The House of Sleep
  • Author Jonathan Coe
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 352
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Knopf Publishing Group, New York, New York, U.S.A.
  • Date 1999-04-27
  • ISBN 9780375700880 / 0375700889
  • Weight 0.6 lbs (0.27 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.02 x 5.19 x 0.79 in (20.37 x 13.18 x 2.01 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1980's
    • Chronological Period: 1990's
    • Chronological Period: 1950-1999
  • Library of Congress subjects England, Didactic fiction
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

"Intricately plotted and ingeniously constructed. . . . A deft satire . . . a strange and poignant love story." --The Wall Street Journal

"Often disconcerting, sometimes moving, frequently funny. . . . Coe eviscerates the bottom-liners with hilarious bare-toothed ferocity."  --The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Jonathan Coe has written a witty, engaging romance that reinvigorates the old saw that life is a dream."    --The New York Times Book Review

"An epic farce fueled by romance and satire. . . . It is also a hilarious and deeply touching tale. . . .Love, tenderness, affection: The House of Sleep glows with these qualities, and exalts them." --San Francisco Chronicle

Citations

  • New York Times, 07/27/1999, Page 32

About the author

Born in 1961, Jonathan Coe took degrees from Cambridge and Warwick universities. He lives in London.

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