A poignant, urgent memoir about insomnia; the non-fiction debut by acclaimed novelist and Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey whose books have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), the Guardian First Book Award, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Harvey moved to Grove for her latest novel The Western Wind, which received wide coverage and rave reviews in the New York Times Book Review, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post among others. Grove will publish The Shapeless Unease, Harvey's first ever book of nonfiction, alongside Jonathan Cape in the UK.
Insomnia affects more people now than ever, shown by the proliferation of sleep medications, meditation apps, diets, and "clean sleep" tips. Harvey's book transcends the zeitgeist and evokes the experience of suffering with insomnia with the authority of a sufferer and the clarity and beauty, grit, and wit of an award-winning writer.
Though told from the point of view of a newly middle-aged woman in England-her year of no sleep triggered by the Brexit Referendum-Harvey's concerns are universal. Swap Brexit for Trump and this is as relevant and up to date for an American readership as it gets.
Blurbs already in from Tessa Hadley and Nathan Filer with Sarah Moss and others to come.
There is a huge appetite for eloquent, literary non-fiction as evident from the success of the work of Maggie Nelson, Leslie Jameson, and Helen Macdonald.
Harvey has been praised by Michael Cunningham, Tessa Hadley, AM Holmes, and James Wood, among others and her work has been compared to Virginia Woolf, Marilynne Robinson, WG Sebald, Claire Messud, John Banville, and Joseph O'Neill.
She teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University in the UK and her stories have appeared in Granta and on BBC Radio4.
