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| Categories | Thrillers & Suspense |
| Author | Dan Chaon |
| Publisher | Henry Holt and Co. (May 24, 2022) |
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 320 pages |
| Item Weight | 1.1 pounds |
| Dimensions |
6.5 x 1.5 x 9.6 inches |
I. Book introduction
Sleepwalk is a high speed and darkly comic road trip through a near future America with a big-hearted mercenary, from beloved and acclaimed award-winning novelist Dan Chaon.
“[Chaon] does madcap well and likes his characters, even the killers―especially the killers.”―The New York Times Book Review
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
An NPR “Book of the Day”
A USA Today “Must Read”
hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. A good-natured henchman with a complicated and lonely past and a passion for LSD microdosing, he spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog that has post-traumatic stress and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust.
Out of the blue, one of Will’s many burner phones heralds a call from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations; he’s half certain she’s AI. She needs his help. She’s entrenched in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers, and for Will to continue to have any contact with her increasingly fuzzes the line between the people he is working for and the people he’s running from.
With his signature blend of haunting emotional realism and fast-paced intrigue, Dan Chaon populates his fractured America with characters who ring all too true. Gazing both back to the past and forward to an inevitable-enough-seeming future, examines where we’ve been and where we’re going and the connections that bind us, no matter how far we travel to dodge them or how cleverly we hide.
Editorial Reviews
“Chaon creates a daring irony in the disconnect between the road warrior’s self-deceit and the reader’s skepticism. The mystery, the moral audacity, the sense that anything is possible in these early pages refreshes not only the hit-man trope but also the world itself…What prevails above the plot is the voice, which is consistently winning and ― odd for so bloody a tale ― unfailingly warm.”
―Joshua Ferris, The New York Times Book Review“Wild and entertaining.”
―Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal“Chaon’s exuberant new novel draws on an array of genres and narratives, but it’s also a visionary work…Chaon balances rage, tenderness, and gallows humor as his Everydude seeks intimacy from a daughter who may or may not be real. A polished performance by a writer in command of his gifts.”
―Oprah Daily“Chaon, the visionary author of Await Your Reply and Among the Missing, returns with another standout literary thriller…Sleepwalk is Chaon at the height of his powers.”
―Esquire“Dan Chaon’s brash, exuberant new novel Sleepwalk [is] a Tarantino vibe in book form with nods to Pynchon-paranoia and Kerouac-style road epic, Greek myths and dystopian fiction. Sleepwalk draws on an array of genres and narratives, but it’s also a visionary work, a preview of a nation just minutes away… Sleepwalk is no act of dull somnambulism but rather a vigorous, polished performance by a writer in command of his gifts.”
―Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune“Sleepwalk is a total mind bend of a story that takes this complicated character on a zigzag across the country, encountering a cast of memorable personas on the way. Though the novel departs from some of Chaon’s previous work, it maintains his focus on the gritty realities recognizable in modern America, as shown in previous character-driven novels Await Your Reply, Ill Will and You Remind Me of Me.”
―Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer“Dan Chaon’s latest novel has a plot with intrigue in spades as his latest protagonist abandons life off the grid for a high-octane, country-wide expedition.”
―Thrillist“In prize-worthy prose, Dan Chaon has fathered a protagonist worthy of respect, affection, and loyalty.”
―Washington Independent Review of Books“There’s plenty of heart and humor in Chaon’s slyly dystopian thriller.”
―The Philadelphia Inquirer“Thoroughly engaging, a rollicking trip from one misadventure to another, populated by an eccentric cast.”
―New York Journal of Books“[A] mind-bending experience…There are surprises on every page of Dan Chaon’s terrific, darkly funny new novel.”
―Akron Beacon Journal“Sleepwalk is a literary picaresque full of dark wit and quirky observations set in an alternate America. Mixed in with the purely imagined are characters, technologies, and events that are real, and taken together, demonstrate just how close we are to things getting really weird.”
―Electric Lit“Sleepwalk is a wild ride. It’s an unputdownable novel that is never dull and so beautifully written that it is a simple pleasure just to get lost in the prose and a frightening new world that could resemble ours in the future.”
―BookReporter“A fast-paced dystopian thriller and a touching exploration of the power of familial love.”
―BookPage (starred review)“This strange and compelling plot features Chaon’s signature imaginative flair and brilliant pacing to create an ominous tension infused with sly wit . . . A consummate storyteller, Chaon imbues the darkly comic with colossal heart.”
―Booklist (starred review)“As ever, Chaon expertly fuses the dystopian nightmares of technology and crime with fascinating characters who cross a hellscape to find each other. This is his best one yet.”
―Publishers Weekly (starred review)“To say this is one of the best novels I’ve read in years is almost not enough. Dan Chaon’s Sleepwalk is a thrilling and often hilarious road trip across America in the very near future, told by a winning and murderous narrator. But beneath the zigzag adventure tale is a poignant reminder of the fragile nature of our humanity, an appreciation of the tricky balancing act of living. It’s a beautiful, unsettling, and thoughtful novel ― told by one of America’s great storytellers.”
―Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl“Sleepwalk is an addictive dystopian picaresque, by turns darkly funny, deeply harrowing, and surprisingly poignant. Dan Chaon’s vision of our future will give you chills of dread and recognition.”
―Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers“How to describe this excellent novel? Slapstick of the sinister might capture something of its peculiar, bighearted and epic scope, but Dan Chaon’s books are always hard to sum up. Anyway, I loved it.”
―Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble“Dan Chaon has given us one of the most intriguing, original, and fully-realized characters in recent memory; that he’s the center of an absolute page-turner is the icing on the cake. Sleepwalk is riveting, propulsive, chilling, and (no shocker) pure genius.”
―Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers“Sleepwalk is a deeply satisfying thriller. Though Dan Chaon’s novels are never quite what they seem, this book still surprises―it’s a frightening indictment of corporate power and the surveillance state, as well as a tender story about the depth of parental love. What an absolute marvel.”
―Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind“Dan Chaon’s future America may be truly wrecked but it’s also familiar and perhaps quintessential. Out of this wreckage Chaon has constructed a gloriously entertaining page-turner of a novel. Bravo!”
―Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends“Filled with brilliantly bleak humor, unflinchingly raw emotional insight, and an unforgettable journeyman mercenary, Sleepwalk takes us on a riveting road trip through a county past the point of no return. A marvel in the offing.”
―Ivy Pochoda, author of Wonder Valley“Dan Chaon just keeps getting better, stranger, and harder to predict. Sleepwalk is an amiable apocalyptic epic, narrated by the sweetest, most charming deadly itinerant mercenary I’ve encountered in fiction, and it never fails to surprise and delight. To every pandemic survivor haunting the earth with their phone at 3 percent, this creepy, weirdly optimistic campfire tale is for you.”
―J. Robert Lennon, author of Subdivision“Set in troublingly probable future and full of heartbreak, Dan Chaon’s Sleepwalk is nevertheless an achievement of humor, tenderness, and human connection.”
―Smith Henderson, author of Fourth of July CreekPast Praise for Dan Chaon
“In his haunting, strikingly original new novel [Ill Will], Chaon takes formidable risks, dismantling his timeline like a film editor.”
―The New York Times Book Review“Chaon is one of America’s best and most dependable writers…”
―Los Angeles Times“Following writers like Richard Matheson and Shirley Jackson, Dan Chaon writes in the spooky tradition of suburban gothic. . . . [His] writing is cool and precise, but his story is thrillingly unstable.”
―The Wall Street Journal“[Chaon] is the modern day John Cheever.”
―Boston Sunday Globe
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of May 2022: It might take you a few chapters to figure out who Chaon’s protagonist Will Bear is and what makes him tick, but the chapters are short and soon you’ll have your bearings. Sleepwalk takes place in a near future dystopia where most of the big problems we have in the world have continued to worsen. Will Bear lives in that worsening world, and he has an unsavory job that keeps him driving around and off the grid, and that sometimes requires him to shoot people—but his humanity and warmth in the face of all that, along with his sense of humor, will win you over. Sleepwalk is a road novel that will make you think and make you laugh. It’s fast-paced, literary, and entertaining. There’s a lot going for it, but in my view the book’s greatest asset is Will Bear himself. I almost wished I could ride shotgun with him. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Editor
About Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon (born June 11, 1964) is an American writer. Formerly a creative writing professor, he is the author of three short story collections and four novels.
Dan Chaon’s most recent book is the short story collection Stay Awake (2012), a finalist for the Story Prize. Other works include the national bestseller Await Your Reply and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthologies, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award, and he was the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Ohio and teaches at Oberlin College. A new novel, Ill Will, is due out in March 2017.
In about the mid-1990s, Chaon met his biological father through a DNA registry. He later said that, because his adoptive father was a construction worker and different in nature from Chaon, “I had this whole image of, if I were to ever find my biological parents, they would be very artistic. But my biological father is a construction worker—he’s an electrician!”
Chaon married the writer Sheila Schwartz either in 1988 or on June 4, 1989.[citation needed] The two met when he was a nineteen-year-old undergraduate student at Northwestern, and she was his thirty-year-old writing professor. They were married for twenty years until her death of ovarian cancer in November 2008. They have two sons, Philip Chaon and Paul Chaon.
II. [Reviews] Sleepwalk: A Novel by Dan Chaon
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1. JENNIFER Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
The most recent Dan Chaon (“Shawn”) novel, to be released mid-April, did not disappoint. Not as complex nor as fragmented as You Remind Me of Me, Sleepwalk moves like a film. I kept imagining Jesse Plemons as the laid-back and likable mercenary, and singular guide of this surprisingly emotional, speculative-fiction adventure. And this film-like feeling may have been deliberate, as the main character often disassociates and begins narrating as he watches his own life unfold.
The story begins by bringing us into the main character, Billy’s, work routine, which is clearly on the fringe of society. Turns out Bill lives completely off the grid! Or so he thought – until someone, somehow has tracked him down. And this someone has an odd story to tell, which just gets odder as we and William struggle to fill in the picture.
This novel has a different kind of puzzle-building feel from You Remind Me of Me, but it does have one. And as we learn the details of this world they feel half off-kilter and half familiar. There’s an eerie quality to what our protagonist is up against, both in what he expects (like a particular kind of traffic jam), and what he doesn’t expect (the main story), because the world he inhabits – one where morals become relative – feels too close for comfort. Sleepwalk could only take place in this context, and everything in this story dances on that boundary between marginal and familiar. The protagonist, Will, is told that a small choice from his past has snowballed into something huge, in part because he didn’t have all the facts about his own life. As he learns, he sees all the people and events from his past through a new lens. The story makes us question what we trust and what we don’t, while once again playing with the yearning for connection, specifically family connection. That yearning to understand ourselves through connection with family seems to be at the heart of both Chaon novels I’ve read.
Dan Chaon is a new-to-me favorite author, and I feel lucky to have won the Goodreads giveaway from Henry Holt Books.
2. L.S.POPOVICH Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
Dan Chaon honed his catchy thriller-esque atmosphere into a tense road novel reminiscent of Philip K. Dick’s off-kilter weirdness and soft-dystopian Straw Dogs-style manhunts. An addictive read with dark undertones establishing the prescient consequences of social media, drugs, cloning, the morals of biological and artificial relations and other deep and relevant stuff. Yet, the close first person perspective focuses the lens on a flawed hero, whose descent into the Inferno is appropriately brutal. Somehow manages to come off as heartfelt amid the bleak and blasted remains of a landscape fertilized by American corpses.
3. JILL Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
Dan Chaon has just knocked it out of the ballpark this time. Sleepwalk – my new favorite of all his books – has everything: an opening that sucked me in from page one, fast-paced intrigue, an indictment of the ever-encroaching surveillance state and the mercenary corporate structure, and a yearning for true connection in a time when we are all becoming increasingly tribal and untrusting.
But most of all, it has Will Bear, certainly one of the most memorable and fascinating characters recently created. Will lives outside the grid (no Social Security number, no social media trail) and has had so many aliases that he thinks of himself as Barely Blur. He’s spent his life as a useful tool – perpetuating acts of industrial espionage, burning down the house of a potentially problematic blogger, bringing those who owe the organization he works for to “justice”. There’s nothing he won’t do, even, in rare cases, baby trafficking.
But that doesn’t mean Will doesn’t feel remorse. He rescued a pit bull named Flip from a notorious dog-fighting ring and he lavishes Flip with affection to turn him around. The baby? He dreams up a happy ending where the baby goes to a good family and is adored. He’s learned that people respond to flattery, so he makes sure to either compliment others or resort to his trademark “right on!” to show he agrees with them.
Early on, Will is driving in the Guiding Star (he loves his van, too) and suddenly all his burner phones go off at once. He’s untraceable – so what gives? Turns out it’s a young woman named Cammie who claims to be his daughter (Will donated sperm when he was in his early 20s)…or is she? Is she one of many “Cammies” who have a nefarious goal in mind? Is she artificial intelligence or some tech-savvy hacker? The problem is, Will – who never knew who his father was and had a – shall we say – antagonist relationship with his mother, really wants to believe he has a daughter. And the plot takes off from there.
Sleepwalk is suspenseful, poignant, humorous, addictive, and at times, even tender. Underneath the compelling story, it asks important questions: is it easier to kill than to suffer the agony of empathy? What happens when our worship of technology and profit supersede our craving for connection? What does it take for us to make us wish for another life for another better version of ourselves? What does it really mean to be human?
I totally loved this one. Deep thanks for Henry Holt and Company for an early copy in exchange for an honest review
4. WILLIAM Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
Your Typical Dystopian Hitman Drug-Fueled Road Novel
No one is writing like Dan Chaon right now. Dude does ghost stories, serial killer hunts, Satanic Panic stuff, and now Sleepwalk. Sleepwalk is a doozy of a novel, almost unclassifiable. We might call it “pre-apocalyptic.” It’s set in a crumbling America that feels very real and uncomfortably close to our own. The protagonist, Will Bear, is a lovable sort-of hitman who gets caught up in the machinations of a multi-generational conspiracy involving a young woman who may or may not be his biological daughter.
Chaon’s writing keeps us grounded and engaged, even as the narrative goes to some dark places. He’s one of those writers where you might not notice at first how good his writing is because it never feels like he’s showing off.
If you’re a fan of sci-fi, you should check out Sleepwalk for a subtle kind of dystopia. If you’re a fan of “literary” fiction, read Sleepwalk for Chaon’s sly humor & deft characterization.If you’re a fan of thrillers–hell, listen, this novel has something for everyone. Check it out.
5. HOTELIER Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
Dan Chaon is a singular and important voice in American fiction, exploring in his unmistakable tone and style themes of family, connection, the inner workings of personal identity, the corrosive power of technology, and our country’s increasingly troubling turns toward corporatization, radicalization, and paranoia. This latest book is his best yet. Will “Billy” Bear – who goes by too many aliases to count – is an operative for a vast criminal syndicate with the deliciously mundane name of Value Standard Enterprises. He roams the country in a camper van, his only companion a scarred-up pitbull that he rescued from a dogfighting ring, taking calls and jobs of varying levels of criminality from a plethora of burner phones, and the “Friends” of the syndicate who know how to reach him. Into this lonely vigil, however, comes the voice of a young woman named Cammie who claims to be his daughter – but is she real, or is it just another deadly trap being laid for a man who has stayed assiduously “off the grid” his entire life? As Billy tries to sort out the truth there, and the uncomfortable truths of the near-future dystopia he lives in, the story only gets better, and weirder, and more compelling. And somehow, through all of this dysfunction, immorality, and technological squalor, the author finds a way to deservedly pluck our heartstrings as well.
6. STEVEN RAMIREZ Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
Addictive Storytelling That Doesn’t Play by the Rules
It’s true. Raymond Chandler and Kurt Vonnegut made a baby. And its name is Sleepwalk. From the first few pages, I was enthralled by author Dan Chaon’s ability to create an antihero of such depth—such longing—that I nearly forgot Will Bear is a sociopath. Yeah. Among his many side jobs, he kills people.
As you wend your way through the backroads of a slightly futuristic America, you realize that the person Billy is was mainly due to his random, haphazard childhood. That and a sometime mom who herself had sociopathic tendencies. Like his mother, when the protagonist takes someone out, it’s not personal. Instead, it’s necessary.
When Will learns that he might have a biological daughter, things get even more interesting as the revelation turns his world upside down. There were times when I pictured the character as Philip Marlowe chasing down clues. Other times, I recalled some of the funniest moments in novels, such as Player Piano and Cat’s Cradle. But hey, that’s me.
Sleepwalk is a hard book to categorize. If I had to sum it up, I’d say it’s crime fiction with some laughs, mainly at Will’s expense. And like him, the other characters are as real as they get. Truthfully, though, The novel is not for everyone. Just saying.
If you’re into authors who write to market, then this book may not seem like a slam dunk. But, on the other hand, if you give it a chance, I promise it will open your eyes to addictive storytelling that doesn’t play by the rules. If there was a way, I’d give this book six stars.
7. RICKROCKET Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
Excellent creative literary page turner. Couldn’t put it down. Reveals itself in last 10% of book.
Will (with 6 aliases and a bag of burner phones) is sort of a criminal version of Jack Reacher. A big guy who does various jobs like delivering blackmarket babies, bounty hunting, and cleaning up murder sites. The book takes place in the near? future after major civil unrest, a second pandemic, and ecological disaster. Mt. Rushmore has been bombed, NYC is under water, 50 ft robots , drones, CTV cameras and embedded chips monitor the population. Will is contacted by supposedly his daughter who could be an AI or whatever. She is supposedly a result of his sperm bank donation. She claims she has over 160 other siblings from Will’s donations. This connection with her gets him into a lot of trouble with the people he works as well as others. He is on the run for the rest of the book trying to hook up with his daughter. It is a very exciting road trip but you don’t fully understand what is going on until the last 10% of the book. Like Ill Will with all its twists, this is an excellent read.
8. DAVID Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
I received an ARC from the publisher (Henry Holt) in exchange for my honest opinion.
__________
Whenever I jot down thoughts on a new Dan Chaon novel, I tend to say ‘This is his best yet!’ That could, of course, mean that he gets better with every book, or that he’s not written a bad one – or both. Both apply here.
In giving us a story of the near-future, Chaon has also given us what seems to be his own personal statement about the state of things in America – and what that state is likely to look (and feel) like in detail before too long.
Visions of what’s-to-come have been as labyrinthine as ‘1984’ and as desolate as ‘The Road’. But though we don’t know the exact year in ‘Sleepwalk’, it doesn’t really seem too far off from where we are right now. References are made to other pandemics and some of the expected results of climate change; the living landscape seems rather familiar – except maybe for things like the huge surveillance robots (which I haven’t personally experienced but I would bet that certain groups of people have by now).
If what Chaon has described doesn’t feel more recognizable to the reader (just recognizable enough to feel plausible), it’s best to keep in mind that (for the most part) we’re following one man’s story and what’s going on with him has got him so… let’s say distracted… that real people… let’s say more honorable members of society… are barely noticeable on the periphery. We don’t really know how humanity in general is faring but people seem as scary as what we’re already witnessing by ourselves.
The man we’re following is – in his own words:
a dreamy, cheerful henchman with my faithful hound, riding along, carrying out my various orders–transporting prisoners, delivering packages, planting explosives, spying, guarding abandoned factories, cleaning up millionaires’ compounds after bloody massacres, assassinating minor people.
Will Bear is a fixer for hire. As such, he’s always on-the-go, ping-ponging around the country wherever he’s needed. He doesn’t seem to think of himself as a bad person; he’s able to justify certain actions to himself convincingly. Still, he’s reviewing his situation (over 50 and still damaged goods)… just around the time that someone in particular, some young someone from his past, begins… let’s not say stalking… but attempting contact, with fierce determination.
In the earlier part of the novel, Will is spending a lot of time in his car (it starts to feel like that one-man, Tom Hardy flick ‘Locke’) but, as you give yourself over to where Chaon leads, momentum seems to kick in in a way that can go unnoticed… and by then, in terms of page-turning, it’s ‘too late’. … I read this book in a day.
As I recall, Chaon’s last book (‘Ill Will’) was rather complicated – but, even though some key elements in this new work unravel slowly, this may possibly be his most straightforward novel. And perhaps his most humorous – darkly humorous, of course. My favorite scene vis-à-vis said humor involves something seemingly out of ‘Island of Dr. Moreau’. As Will explains:
Have you ever seen that movie called ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ with Elizabeth Taylor in it? I feel like I’m in the ‘Planet of the Apes’ version of that.
When it comes to contemporary authors, Chaon has become one of my few favorites. It seems I’ve read everything he’s published. What stands out about him is this: No one writes like he does. His voice doesn’t echo anyone else’s. It’s like the comfortable voice of a questioning mind – at least, in this novel it is. Oh, and in this novel… quite often it comes down to ‘a man and his dog’; and they have a great relationship… sort of like ‘Travels with Charley’… gone wild.
9. JESSIE CARVALHO Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
Read this if you like: Thrilling fast reads, shady pasts , short chapters, dystopian
Wow. This is a fast paced, strange, dark book. Our main character Will/Bill/Whatever of his alias is going to a road trip in future America. He mainly goes by the Barely Blur. He does random tasks as a mercenary. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. He is a big hearted henchman with a complicated and lonely past and an LSD microdosing problem. He spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady, often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog with posttraumatic stress, and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust. I was immediately attached to Will. He is a strange and fascinating man.
Out of no where he gets a call on one of his many burner phones from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter, Cammie. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations. He’s very suspicious of her but she needs his help. She’s in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers. Continuing to have any contact with her increasingly blurs the line between the people Will is working for and the people he’s running from.
This was a wild ride. It reads like a movie. I would love to watch this, for real. The characters were so well developed. The plot evolved in such an intriguing way. Highly recommend this book!
Thank you to Dan Chaon and Henry Holt Co. for the gifted copy!
10. KIM Review Sleepwalk: A Novel
I really loved mostly everything about this book. The storytelling was superb, the characters interesting, the writing easy to read. There were some uncomfortable passages dealing with animal abuse and such, they read gritty but real and packed a punch. Overall this is quite the madcap adventure story. Reminded me a bit of CD Payne’s Youth In Revolt only with a 50 year old main character.
Honestly I would love to see this adapted as a miniseries or something. A highly recommended read, but it may not be to everyone’s tastes.
My copy was provided by NetGalley for review
III. [Quote] Sleepwalk: A Novel by Dan Chaon
Excerpted from Sleepwalk: A Novel by Dan Chaon
Sleepwalk’s hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. A good-natured henchman with a complicated and lonely past and a passion for LSD microdosing, he spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog that has post-traumatic stress and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust.
Out of the blue, one of Will’s many burner phones heralds a call from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations; he’s half certain she’s AI. She needs his help. She’s entrenched in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers, and for Will to continue to have any contact with her increasingly fuzzes the line between the people he is working for and the people he’s running from.
Birthfather
“So… I think you might be my biological father?” she says.
I’m still sitting in the parking lot of the Red Hot Truck Stop in the camper of the Guiding Star, and I can feel my mind unbuckling and unfolding into several minds as I sit there with the phone against my face. Dissociation, I think it’s called, but I’m very focused. I’m aware of floating outside my body, slightly above and to the left, and I hear myself speak.
“Anything’s possible, I suppose!” I say, and I see myself pick up my crossword pen and a napkin and my hand writes clear connection no static and I say, “But what makes you think I’m your dad, honey?”
And this seems to fluster her. I reckon “honey” is an awkward and somewhat aggressive choice on my part, but I’d like to think it’s intended in a fatherly rather than a creepy or threatening or condescending way. But anyways, it puts her a bit off balance.
“So…” she says, “…so, I know this must be very uncomfortable. It’s very uncomfortable for me, too, so maybe I’ll just lay out the information I have and we can proceed from there?”
My hand is writing in cursive in blue ballpoint on the napkin: female voice—approx. 18–25 yrs with childlike affect—slight lisp when pronouncing esses—vocal fry.
“My name is Cammie, by the way,” she says. “I can’t believe I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m sorry, I guess I thought I was better prepared than I actually am.”
Actress? CIA or corporate intelligence?
Somehow she’s gotten access to one of the aliases I used back in the early days. When I hear that old pseudonym, my hair goes on end, and it stays up straight as she cites the name of a fertility clinic in Evanston, Illinois, where Davis Dowty had contracted his services.
It’s true: I did sell a lot of sperm back in my younger days, back when I didn’t know how important privacy was. I’d thought I was anonymous with my Davis Dowty alias, and since masturbating was a skill that I’d gotten reasonably good at, I’d figured out a way to game the system so I could make a living wage traveling from clinic to clinic. It’s not completely unlikely that a child might have been produced.
But how did she connect those fertility clinic records to the Barely Blur, how did she come by the numbers to various phones that were supposedly anonymous and untraceable and unconnected, right down to the Chinese one I haven’t used in eighteen months? How would she know they were all the same person?
She doesn’t offer that information.
It was probably a mistake to engage in the first place. I probably should have just kept tossing those burner phones until I was able to figure out how to slip away and hide again, but I imagined it was smarter to find out what exactly I was dealing with. Now I’m not so sure.
She’s a hacker, that’s my main thought, likely some kind of independent contractor, using me to trace her way toward one of the bigger fish in the network of associates I do jobs for. There are plenty of public and private entities who would like to get hold of me—a number of med-tech corporations that I have done business with over the years, for example, who could have gained access to those old medical records and DNA, maybe just as a tool to blackmail me. But I also have enemies among the Raëlists and Los Antrax and the 14/88, and there have been members of the Kekistan Liberation Front trying to trace me, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the Gudang Garam Corporation watch list as well. That guy Adnan who worked as a middleman for Hezbollah would like to eliminate me, probably. I could make a spreadsheet out of the many who wish me ill. Point being, this could be the bait for some kind of Rube Goldberg trap and I just can’t see the larger machinery of it yet.
Still, claiming to be my daughter seems like a weird game to play. I have to admit there’s a small part of me that would like to believe there’s a child of mine out there who wants desperately to find me. There’s something inside me that swoons a little, half enchanted by the idea. I’d like to know what she looks like, for example, if we resemble each other. If she’s my daughter, does she take after me in some way?
I picture her in pigtails, and maybe there’s a touch of pink or turquoise dye at the tips of her hair. She’s got freckles, no makeup, and I imagine that she’s one of those young women who likes vintage clothes with whimsical patterns on them, and her eyes are green with gold flecks, intense eyes, reflecting the blue glow of her computer. It’s dark in her apartment, just a string of little Christmas lights above her bed. Where is she? Brooklyn? No. Portland? Ann Arbor?
Maybe she’s in some basement office in Quantico, dressed in a pencil skirt and sensible shoes, hair short and severe, and she’s fiddling with buttons as she records my voice.
“I’m sorry that this is so creepy and stalker-y,” she says. “I wish I’d figured out a better way to make contact.”
“Well, it’s pretty impressive work on your part,” I say. “Tracking me down couldn’t have been easy.”
“Yeah…” she says. Her voice is modest, circumspect, almost regretful. “And I know you’re wondering how I found you. Obviously, you’re a very private person, and I’m sure it’s kind of alarming to be—breached?”
“I’ll admit,” I say, “it has caused me some concern.”
“Well sure, yes, of course,” she says, and most of all I’m impressed by the balance she strikes between awkwardness and poise. It’s a disarming tactic. “I mean,” she says, “you’ve got to be worried that I’m working for someone or that I’m going to try to blackmail you or scam you or rip you off. I get it, you know?”
“Unfortunately, trust is an issue,” I say. Flip is sitting by the door of the camper waiting, and I go over and let him out and then I sit down on the stoop and light a j, the phone pressed tight against my ear. Flip paces thoughtfully, deeply immersed in the question of where best to sprinkle his pee.
“I have to tell you,” I say, “the idea that you’ve been hired by somebody, or that you’re running some kind of scam—honestly, that seems a lot more likely than the idea that you’re my daughter and you just happen to have hacker skills like somebody who works for an intelligence agency.”
I’m trying to keep this conversation light and bantering, I don’t want to sound paranoid or panicked. I look out across the parking lot and imagine that there’s a sniper there, a mercenary assassin in a camouflage jumpsuit crouched atop the trailer of a semi. I can almost feel the red light of laser crosshairs crawling across my forehead.
“Well, then!” says Cammie. “I guess my first job is to convince you that I’m for real, right?” There’s a bright, deadly earnestness in her voice that makes me suddenly think that actually, she might be unhinged. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“S-u-r-e,” I say. I parse my words carefully, letter by letter, like I’m filling out a crossword. I realize I should be trying to draw her out, I should be trying to get her to drop some bits of information so I can figure out who she is, where she’s calling from, what her objectives might be. How she might be vulnerable.
“I… well. I think it might help if I had a clearer idea of how you went about finding me?” I say shyly. “If I knew your process, it might ease my mind.”
My face smiles hopefully and earnestly toward the screen of the phone, even though I don’t think she can see me, and Flip turns from his patrol of the Red Hot Truck Stop parking lot and wags his tail.
“I hear what you’re saying,” this girl says sympathetically. “And I really believe that we’re going to get to a point where I can walk you through the whole thing. Once we get to know each other better. But at this time, I have to be kind of stingy about what I tell you.”
“Because you don’t trust me, either.”
“Exactly,” she says, regretfully.
“Well, that’s a screwed-up place for a relationship to begin,” I say. “If we can’t be honest with each other, what’s the point of it?”
“We could start by just having a conversation, maybe?” she says. “Like strangers sitting next to each other on a plane, right?”
“That’s just role-playing,” I say. Flip has finished his patrol of the periphery of the Guiding Star, and he comes back and sits beside me. He noses my hand and I scratch his ear. “Look,” I say. “If you’ve come this far, you must know what kind of person I am. What are you after?”
“I just,” she says, “I just want to make a connection. I want to get to know you. We’re not so different, you know—I’m not on the grid, either. That was one of the reasons I decided to reach out to you. If you’d been, like, a high school principal or the owner of a Buffalo wings franchise, I probably wouldn’t have been interested.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “So what exactly are you interested in?” “I think we might be able to help each other,” she says.
“I don’t need any help.”
“Yes, you do,” she says. And then she hangs up.
….
Note: Above is an excerpt from the book “Sleepwalk: A Novel by Dan Chaon”. If you find it interesting and useful, don’t forget to buy paper books to support the Author and Publisher!
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