Sleepwalk

I did love it. 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. Chaon taps into the prurient thrill of riding shotgun with the unpredictable, and the question dawns: Just how lawless and unhinged will the world of Sleepwalk get? ... This sort of character is usually reserved for revenge flicks and Florida crime blotters, but Chaon, no stranger to genre mash-ups, brings a more literary sensibility to the proceedings, endowing his protagonist with a sweet disposition and a gently comic voice ... If it is a bit of a drag, dramatically, that she never physically appears — a formal necessity to keep the mystery of her true identity viable — Chaon does manage, by way of Will’s self-deluded longing, to turn his antihero into a figure worthy of pity ... What prevails above the plot is the voice, which is consistently winning and — odd for so bloody a tale — unfailingly warm. It’s a comic departure from the straightforward darkness of recent Chaon, and a welcome change. That’s no knock on his earlier books, just an acknowledgment that humane black comedy is a good look on him. He does madcap well and likes his characters, even the killers — especially the killers. Sure, there’s a crap world out there, and if Chaon’s fever dream is actually a forecast, it’s going to get a whole lot crappier. In that case, we’d all do well to affect a bit of Will Bear’s hopeful good cheer.

Brash, exuberant ... 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 ... The novel's intricate structure and seductive voice lift off the page.

Will is sweet, sentimental and severely traumatized (he microdoses LSD to stay upbeat)—appealing company if something of a stock character: the hit man with the heart of gold ... It’s wild and entertaining, don’t get me wrong. But I doubt it will trouble my dreams in the same way as its predecessor.