One or two stories peter out without having amounted to much. The rest of them are deftly constructed and vividly realized. The eponymous tale about a Middle Eastern immigrant intent on wreaking havoc...shows that Freeman is capable of producing darker hues, and of disturbing and delighting in equal measure.
Freeman...expertly depicts the dance between who we appear to be and what’s below the surface in her new story collection, Sleeping Alone ... While the stories do wrestle with issues of privilege and class, that’s not their focus. Rather, the underlying current binding these stories together is the way they highlight the emotional price we pay when there is a disconnect between our public and private selves. It’s not a comfortable read, but it is a searing one. While Freeman’s prose has many virtues—she’s masterful on a line level and utilizes effective narrative techniques in each story—it’s her ability to highlight how lonely it is to not truly be seen that makes Sleeping Alone so remarkable.
For all Sameera’s disdain for these white men’s inauthenticity and appropriation, in other stories Freeman is guilty of her own authorial overreach. Far-flung settings and superficially drawn narrators read more as caricatures than whole characters ... In a broad treatment of identity politics, these particular stories suffer from a lack of imaginative license compared with others in the collection that sing with specificity.
Though each story in this collection is an independent narrative, the inability to truly see others, and the consequences that ensue are a recurring theme ... Freeman is not afraid to linger in disquiet. The eleven individual stories tell of many kinds of heartache, more than it would seem a slim volume could hold ... Freeman’s ear for language is evident; each story in Sleeping Alone has a distinguishing voice and a writing style tailored to its content ... Too often, those most vulnerable to chaos (financial, personal, marital) are unseen. In this and other stories of Sleeping Alone, Freeman makes visible lives that are often hidden in plain sight.
Too often, graphic violence in fiction is garish and showy. It takes a deft hand to portray the more subtle kinds of cruelties that shape these spectacular stories. Freeman possesses just that sort of talent, the kind that can massage touches of the unwelcome into everyday incidents to unsettling effect ... Freeman’s stories work precisely because they are full of the drama and the ordinariness of life. Here is proof that there is tragedy and beauty in the everyday; you just have to know where to look.
This short story collection methodically strips away the intricate layers of privilege, revealing the sometimes-sinister truth that no one is ever truly safe ... With a cast of richly diverse characters, from immigrants to housewives and domestic workers, Freeman reveals the interpersonal dance of those who orbit around, or are beholden to, the middle class ... Each story is tightly structured and aimed to pierce through the reader’s own sense of stability, which, while not always enjoyable, is certainly effective ... Deceptively disturbing, deeply felt, and original, this collection will work its way beneath your nerves like a splinter.
