‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT ‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS ‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again. Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire. A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping. ‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style ‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES 'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSONA family secret. A new love. The chance to start again.Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire.A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping.‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT ‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS ‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again. Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire. A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping. ‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style ‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES 'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT''Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON''Exceptionally moving''NEW YORK TIMES''Magnetic, breathtaking’ CHERIE JONES‘Beautiful … I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER''Profoundly beautiful''NPRA must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style and Good Housekeeping.A dazzling debut following a newly divorced young mother reckoning with a long-buried secret as she returns home one summer.A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again.Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes but her family life requires careful prudence. Then one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her. She’s newly divorced and navigating life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush from all those summers ago, punched out of time. She must now reckon with the echoes between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child truly safe, and the family she carries inside herself as she builds a family of her own.Beautiful, wry, humane and life-affirming, Sleep is about the burden of love and what lies on the other side of silence: the world, rich in possibility.A most anticipated book of 2025 in New York Times, Elle, People, Oprah Daily and SheerLuxe.''Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf''NEW YORK TIMES‘A masterpiece of carefully crafted perspective and tone … heroic, even hopeful'' WASHINGTON POST‘A compelling debut about motherhood, buried trauma and how we learn to set ourselves free … Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’SUNDAY TIMES STYLE‘A melancholic, moving read that explores how we carry trauma within us, written in beautiful, sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING‘Jones’s prose is spare but effervescent''ELLE‘Sleep has a real heart, beating with courage and rage. I loved it’ ABIGAIL DEAN, author of The Death of Us''Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed

‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT ‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS ‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again. Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire. A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping. ‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style ‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES 'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT''Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON''Exceptionally moving''NEW YORK TIMES''Magnetic, breathtaking’ CHERIE JONES‘Beautiful … I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER''Profoundly beautiful''NPRA must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style and Good Housekeeping.A dazzling debut following a newly divorced young mother reckoning with a long-buried secret as she returns home one summer.A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again.Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes but her family life requires careful prudence. Then one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her. She’s newly divorced and navigating life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush from all those summers ago, punched out of time. She must now reckon with the echoes between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child truly safe, and the family she carries inside herself as she builds a family of her own.Beautiful, wry, humane and life-affirming, Sleep is about the burden of love and what lies on the other side of silence: the world, rich in possibility.A most anticipated book of 2025 in New York Times, Elle, People, Oprah Daily and SheerLuxe.''Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf''NEW YORK TIMES‘A masterpiece of carefully crafted perspective and tone … heroic, even hopeful'' WASHINGTON POST‘A compelling debut about motherhood, buried trauma and how we learn to set ourselves free … Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’SUNDAY TIMES STYLE‘A melancholic, moving read that explores how we carry trauma within us, written in beautiful, sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING‘Jones’s prose is spare but effervescent''ELLE‘Sleep has a real heart, beating with courage and rage. I loved it’ ABIGAIL DEAN, author of The Death of Us''Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed

Named a Best Book of the Year by Oprah’s Book Club and Real SimpleEvery parent exists inside of two families simultaneously–the one she was born into, and the one she has made.“Incredibly moving." – Ann Patchett“Propulsive and funny and heartbreaking.” —J. Courtney Sullivan“Heartbreaking, sexy, and full of humor . . . exhilarating.” —Xochitl GonzalezThe surface of Margaret’s childhood is one of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes until, late one summer, she wakes to a new kind of peril, and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away. Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced, discovering the pleasures of a new lover, and navigating her life as a co-parent when she brings her daughters back to the house where she was raised. As the past encroaches on the present, Margaret reckons with questions about how much of our lives are our own and what it takes to keep a child safe.     Warm and generous, sexy and full of humor, Sleep is dazzling in its wisdom about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the cost of secrets, and the burdens and gifts of love.

Ein literarisches Meisterwerk über Mütter und TöchterAls Margarets Mutter im Sterben liegt, kehrt sie mit ihren Töchtern ins Elternhaus zurück – ein Ort voller schmerzlicher Erinnerungen. Elizabeth war eine Frau mit Geschmack und festen Vorstellungen, aber auch eine Mutter, die Kontrolle über Fürsorge stellte. Während Margaret sich in diesem heißen Sommer von ihrer Mutter verabschiedet, stellt sie sich den Geheimnissen, die sie seit ihrer Kindheit verfolgen. Wie sie als Mädchen allein mit der ungewollten Aufmerksamkeit umgehen musste, die Nachbarjungen und ihr eigener Bruder auf sie richteten. Wie ihre Mutter sich als Frau immer zurücknahm und das auch von ihrer Tochter forderte. Wie ein Moment im Pool Margarets Verhältnis zu ihrer Mutter für immer prägte. Seitdem ist Margaret entschlossen, keiner Fassade zuzustimmen. Sie weiß nur zu gut, das Glück ist kompliziert, und sie hat die Kraft, endlich die eigene Stimme zu erheben. »Der Debütroman von Honor Jones hat mich von der ersten Seite an gefesselt … Dieses Buch werden Sie nicht aus der Hand legen wollen.« J. Courtney Sullivan, Autorin von Die Frauen von Maine

A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARAN OPRAH DAILY AND REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize“Incredibly moving." – Ann Patchett“Propulsive and funny and heartbreaking.” —J. Courtney Sullivan"An exceptionally moving novel. Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf."—The New York Times"Profoundly beautiful."— NPRFrom a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.Every parent exists inside of two families simultaneously – the one she was born into, and the one she has made. Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s verdant backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of flashlight tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes and a devoted best friend, but her family life requires careful maintenance. Her mother can be as brittle and exacting as she is loving, and her father and brother assume familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then late one summer, everything changes. After a series of confusing transgressions, the simple pleasures of girlhood, slip away. Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. She’s newly divorced and navigating her life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new lover. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush, punched out of time. Called upon to be a mother to her daughters, and a daughter to her mother, she must reckon with the echoes and refractions between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child safe, and how much of our lives are our own, alone.Warm and generous, unflinchingly human, and ultimately joyful and empowering, SLEEP is about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the cost of secrets and the burden of love, and what’s on the other side of silence: the world, rich in possibility.

‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT ‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS ‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again. Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire. A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping. ‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style ‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES 'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSONA family secret. A new love. The chance to start again.Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire.A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping.‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT ‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS ‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again. Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire. A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping. ‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style ‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES 'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT''Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON''Exceptionally moving''NEW YORK TIMES''Magnetic, breathtaking’ CHERIE JONES‘Beautiful … I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER''Profoundly beautiful''NPRA must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style and Good Housekeeping.A dazzling debut following a newly divorced young mother reckoning with a long-buried secret as she returns home one summer.A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again.Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes but her family life requires careful prudence. Then one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her. She’s newly divorced and navigating life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush from all those summers ago, punched out of time. She must now reckon with the echoes between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child truly safe, and the family she carries inside herself as she builds a family of her own.Beautiful, wry, humane and life-affirming, Sleep is about the burden of love and what lies on the other side of silence: the world, rich in possibility.A most anticipated book of 2025 in New York Times, Elle, People, Oprah Daily and SheerLuxe.''Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf''NEW YORK TIMES‘A masterpiece of carefully crafted perspective and tone … heroic, even hopeful'' WASHINGTON POST‘A compelling debut about motherhood, buried trauma and how we learn to set ourselves free … Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’SUNDAY TIMES STYLE‘A melancholic, moving read that explores how we carry trauma within us, written in beautiful, sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING‘Jones’s prose is spare but effervescent''ELLE‘Sleep has a real heart, beating with courage and rage. I loved it’ ABIGAIL DEAN, author of The Death of Us''Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed

‘Beautiful … Incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT ‘Sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ‘A rich tale you can’t put down’ iNEWS ‘Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again. Margaret's childhood is one of Saturday morning pancakes and sunlit swimming pools behind white picket fences. Then, one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced with two young daughters of her own. She's starting over while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But, returning to the family home at her mother's beckoning, she finds herself swept up in the unspoken truth of that long ago summer. She must now reckon with what binds the past to the present, one generation to the next, and safety to the freedom we most desire. A must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style, Elle and Good Housekeeping. ‘A moving, funny and searing look at family and marriage. I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark‘Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’ PANDORA SYKES, in Sunday Times Style ‘Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf’ NEW YORK TIMES 'Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed‘A novel of quiet, devastating beauty … I loved it' ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A

‘Beautiful … incredibly moving’ ANN PATCHETT''Deeply satisfying … beautifully written’ POLLY SAMSON''Exceptionally moving''NEW YORK TIMES''Magnetic, breathtaking’ CHERIE JONES‘Beautiful … I adored it’ CHRIS WHITAKER''Profoundly beautiful''NPRA must-read novel of the summer in Sunday Times Style and Good Housekeeping.A dazzling debut following a newly divorced young mother reckoning with a long-buried secret as she returns home one summer.A family secret. A new love. The chance to start again.Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes but her family life requires careful prudence. Then one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her. She’s newly divorced and navigating life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new boyfriend. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush from all those summers ago, punched out of time. She must now reckon with the echoes between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child truly safe, and the family she carries inside herself as she builds a family of her own.Beautiful, wry, humane and life-affirming, Sleep is about the burden of love and what lies on the other side of silence: the world, rich in possibility.A most anticipated book of 2025 in New York Times, Elle, People, Oprah Daily and SheerLuxe.''Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf''NEW YORK TIMES‘A masterpiece of carefully crafted perspective and tone … heroic, even hopeful'' WASHINGTON POST‘A compelling debut about motherhood, buried trauma and how we learn to set ourselves free … Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful’SUNDAY TIMES STYLE‘A melancholic, moving read that explores how we carry trauma within us, written in beautiful, sun-saturated prose’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING‘Jones’s prose is spare but effervescent''ELLE‘Sleep has a real heart, beating with courage and rage. I loved it’ ABIGAIL DEAN, author of The Death of Us''Thrillingly virtuosic – beguiling, unsettling and stylish’ JESSICA STANLEY, author of Consider Yourself Kissed

Named a Best Book of the Year by Oprah’s Book Club and Real SimpleEvery parent exists inside of two families simultaneously–the one she was born into, and the one she has made.“Incredibly moving." – Ann Patchett“Propulsive and funny and heartbreaking.” —J. Courtney Sullivan“Heartbreaking, sexy, and full of humor . . . exhilarating.” —Xochitl GonzalezThe surface of Margaret’s childhood is one of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes until, late one summer, she wakes to a new kind of peril, and the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away. Twenty-five years later, Margaret is newly divorced, discovering the pleasures of a new lover, and navigating her life as a co-parent when she brings her daughters back to the house where she was raised. As the past encroaches on the present, Margaret reckons with questions about how much of our lives are our own and what it takes to keep a child safe.     Warm and generous, sexy and full of humor, Sleep is dazzling in its wisdom about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the cost of secrets, and the burdens and gifts of love.

Ein literarisches Meisterwerk über Mütter und TöchterAls Margarets Mutter im Sterben liegt, kehrt sie mit ihren Töchtern ins Elternhaus zurück – ein Ort voller schmerzlicher Erinnerungen. Elizabeth war eine Frau mit Geschmack und festen Vorstellungen, aber auch eine Mutter, die Kontrolle über Fürsorge stellte. Während Margaret sich in diesem heißen Sommer von ihrer Mutter verabschiedet, stellt sie sich den Geheimnissen, die sie seit ihrer Kindheit verfolgen. Wie sie als Mädchen allein mit der ungewollten Aufmerksamkeit umgehen musste, die Nachbarjungen und ihr eigener Bruder auf sie richteten. Wie ihre Mutter sich als Frau immer zurücknahm und das auch von ihrer Tochter forderte. Wie ein Moment im Pool Margarets Verhältnis zu ihrer Mutter für immer prägte. Seitdem ist Margaret entschlossen, keiner Fassade zuzustimmen. Sie weiß nur zu gut, das Glück ist kompliziert, und sie hat die Kraft, endlich die eigene Stimme zu erheben. »Der Debütroman von Honor Jones hat mich von der ersten Seite an gefesselt … Dieses Buch werden Sie nicht aus der Hand legen wollen.« J. Courtney Sullivan, Autorin von Die Frauen von Maine

A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARAN OPRAH DAILY AND REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize“Incredibly moving." – Ann Patchett“Propulsive and funny and heartbreaking.” —J. Courtney Sullivan"An exceptionally moving novel. Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf."—The New York Times"Profoundly beautiful."— NPRFrom a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.Every parent exists inside of two families simultaneously – the one she was born into, and the one she has made. Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s verdant backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of flashlight tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes and a devoted best friend, but her family life requires careful maintenance. Her mother can be as brittle and exacting as she is loving, and her father and brother assume familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then late one summer, everything changes. After a series of confusing transgressions, the simple pleasures of girlhood, slip away. Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. She’s newly divorced and navigating her life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new lover. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush, punched out of time. Called upon to be a mother to her daughters, and a daughter to her mother, she must reckon with the echoes and refractions between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child safe, and how much of our lives are our own, alone.Warm and generous, unflinchingly human, and ultimately joyful and empowering, SLEEP is about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the cost of secrets and the burden of love, and what’s on the other side of silence: the world, rich in possibility.