The Sleepwalker

A Novel

By: Chris Bohjalian

Narrated by: Cady McClain, Grace Experience

Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Guest Room comes a spine-tingling novel of lies, loss, and buried desire - the mesmerizing story of a wife and mother who vanishes from her bed late one night.

When Annalee Ahlberg goes missing, her children fear the worst. Annalee is a sleepwalker whose affliction manifests in ways both bizarre and devastating. Once, she merely destroyed the hydrangeas in front of her Vermont home. More terrifying was the night her older daughter, Lianna, pulled her back from the precipice of the Gale River Bridge. The morning of Annalee's disappearance, a search party combs the nearby woods. Annalee's husband, Warren, flies home from a business trip. Lianna is questioned by a young hazel-eyed detective. And her little sister, Paige, takes to swimming the Gale to look for clues. When the police discover a small swatch of fabric, a nightshirt, ripped and hanging from a tree branch, it seems certain Annalee is dead, but Gavin Rikert, the hazel-eyed detective, continues to call, continues to stop by the Ahlbergs' Victorian home. As Lianna peels back the layers of mystery surrounding Annalee's disappearance, she finds herself drawn to Gavin, but she must ask herself: Why does the detective know so much about her mother? Why did Annalee leave her bed only when her father was away? And if she really died while sleepwalking, where was the body?

Conjuring the strange and mysterious world of parasomnia, a place somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness, The Sleepwalker is a masterful novel from one of our most treasured storytellers.

©2017 Chris Bohjalian (P)2017 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Bohjalian raises essential questions of identity and heredity, sexuality and desire, bringing the Ahlberg family conundrum into focus with a didn't-see-that-one-coming powerhouse ending." (Carol Haggas, Booklist)

"Bohjalian...never writes the same book twice.... His new novel is suspense with a twist." (Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal)

Interesting story. Narration awful!

I think I will read this book. I think the story line is interesting. But the narration of this audiobook really is terrible. I can't finish it.

So so story with great ending

Sub par story for this author. The ending is great, but to get there is hardly worth it.

Didn't see the ending coming!

This was one of those stories that I was certain I knew the resolution to as it was going on. I am so glad that I was wrong. Both narrators did a wonderful job with this book. And as an added bonus, one of the narrator's character identity (The one read by the amazing Grace Experience) is only revealed at the end.

Good twisty story

Enjoyed the storyline. A good who-done- it. Didn’t love the narrator but hung in there and got used to her voice. Glad I did

Narrator not so great!

I just started this book today, and I am finding the narrator difficult to listen to. She pauses in odd places and it often sounds as if she is a computer, not a human, as if they have used auto-tune on her voice or something. I will update when I finish the book, or if I decide to give up on it.

Narrator almost ruins it

Too bad! A good story practically ruined by the halting narration. The narrator pauses in a weird way, breaking up sentences and spoiling the flow of the writing.

Great

The story is great. The narrators voice is very choppy. It could’ve been so much better if she had read it wwith some feeling and not chop up the sentences like she’s reading a shopping list

Precise Patter

Overuse of words to imply an impressive vocabulary only makes it sound like someone had a word of the day calendar.

Ending was not believable.

Audio performance was painful to listen to. Did not carry the same voice with characters. Her cadence and choice of emphasis was painful to listen to. I was often distracted
By her dramatic
Use of words.

Great story, poor narration

The narrator paused so often, it seemed like three times in every sentence. But the story was intriguing!

Love surprises

As always, the author doesn't disappoint. An unexpected ending, even though there clues are there. I just didn't care for either narration. I'm not a fan of female narrators in general, but these were both grating. One for reading in unnatural pauses, and the other for her voice in general.