‘The Sleepwalker’ by Chris Bohjalian

Two books I read by this author were fabulous (Midwives and The Double Bind) and since reading those, I have been trying to find others of his that are just as good. Alas, this one wasn’t, and neither was The Guest Room, although both are intriguing beach reads, just not as good as the other two. The ending of this one was completely unpredictable which is always fun (this novel is chock-a-block full of red herrings). Bohjalian  is a good writer and can craft a compelling enough story, his novels covering a wide range of topics–you never quite know what you are going to get with this author.

The topic of this novel is sleepwalking, which was interesting to delve into. Sleepwalking is more common in childhood than in adulthood (17% of children sleepwalk in their early years–I did twice) but very few continue to do so as adults. The author focuses mostly on ‘sexsomnia’ a disturbing ‘arousal disorder’ (pun intended) where the adult sleepwalker engages in sexual encounters without waking up–a rather rare occurrence I would think, but interestingly has been used in criminal defence of rape.

When Annalee Ahlberg goes missing, her children fear the worst. Their mother has done bizarre things in the night before. As oldest daughter Lianna peels back the layers of the mystery she asks herself: Why did Annalee leave her bed only when her husband was away? And if she really died while sleepwalking, where is the body? Why does the detective on the case know so much about her mother and why is he now interested in her? Why does her sister have jet-black hair when everyone else in the family is blonde?