This is another book gifted to me by andtheIToldYouSos last year. And this also turned out to be a great little novella to slip into my handbag for those times I was transiting through airports—this time to Indianapolis.
Sleep deprivation is a brutal thing; unfortunately in the last few months, I’ve experienced a good deal of that. However, in Sleep Donation, loss of sleep has become the new pandemic. In its most extreme form, it kills. However, there is a therapy that has been developed that can restore sleep to the sleepless—donors can contribute their peaceful Z’s to help the less fortunate—provided that they are not contaminated by nightmares.
Tricia’s sister Dori was one of the very first victims of the insomnia epidemic, and her death affected her greatly. Tricia’s deep connection with her sister and her pain over her death has made her an incredibly effective recruiter for the Slumber Corps, who solicit sleep donations from the well-rested to fight the pandemic. Tricia’s emotional retelling of her sister’s death greatly helps sway two nervous parents into allowing their infant child—dubbed “Baby A”—to be a donor. Not long afterwards a rouge donor, “Donor Y”, starts contaminating potential restorative sleep donations with terrifying nightmares.
This is an interesting premise, but the surrounding details are not terribly scientific—Russell skirts away from the specifics the same way an episode of Doctor Who might. But the nitty-gritty details are not what we’re here for: what we’re here for the moral quandaries; the ethics and exploitation in dire times.
What Russell excels at though is atmosphere. Her writing really evokes the horrifying effect a lack of sleep can have not on one person but on hundreds. And even though we see everything from the perspective of someone who works for a supposedly charitable organisation, right from the start everything feels off-kilter. There is an eerie feeling that permeates everything; a strong sense of the unnerving.
What is a bit flawed however is the second half of the plot. While it should be of no surprise that Trish starts feeling conflicted about what she does for a job and how she invokes her sister’s death, I don’t feel the length of the novella gives us enough breathing room to explore everything in full. The ending, in particular, was rather abrupt.
But Russell’s skills as a writer are evident. I found the horror of prolonged sleep deprivation very hard to shake. So you bet when I finally caught my plane I made it my priority to also catch a nap.