The Innocent Sleep

This is a hard book for me to review. It is so well plotted and beautifully written, there are so many layers peeled slowly back via chapters that alternate voice between Harry and Robin, but on balance it was just not my type, it was too fraught with guilt, blame, and emotion. I read it twice in order to see if I could have done better at seeing around the curves—sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sleep, or lack of it, is a force in driving the plot here—“sleep deprivation does strange things to a person”-- and Tangier and the expat community there also come alive and make the very unlikely events that set up the story somewhat more plausible. Pacing is terrific—you’ll keep reading and the uneasy feelings you have will only show more deepen as the story unfolds. Great ending too, did not see that coming and I’m still puzzling over what it might mean about how to interpret what happened earlier. show less

Harry and Robin, both artists and Irish ex-pats, are living with their three-year-old son, Dillon, in Tangiers. Harry decides to leave the sleeping toddler alone while he runs a quick errand. While he is gone, the building is razed by an earthquake. Although Dillon’s body is not found, he is presumed dead.

Move forward five years and the couple has returned to Dublin. Robin is doing her best to move on. She has given up her art for architecture and is trying to get past her grief and anger at Harry. On the surface, Harry seems to be doing better. His art is gaining a bit of success and he doesn’t talk about Dillon so much. However, he’s started drinking heavily, engaging in illicit affairs, visiting psychics, and drawing secret show more portraits of Dillon that show him at different ages. Then, one day, he spots a child on the streets of Dublin and he is convinced he is Dillon. He begins to secretly search for him but when he elicits help in his search and when he eventually tells a now-pregnant Robin about his ‘evidence’ of Dillon’s existence, he can’t convince anyone that this isn’t just a sign that he is having a mental breakdown. It is clear to everyone but Harry that he is seeing what he wants to see out of his sense of guilt and grief.

But Harry won’t be dissuaded. He ‘knows’ what he saw and he ‘knows’ he will find his son. But things are not what they seem. As he races to prove Dillon is alive, he sets in motion events rooted in the past and which might better have been left there. Not only does his search threaten his marriage but possibly even his life.

The Innocent Sleep is the debut novel by Karen Perry (actually the writing team of Karen Gillece and Paul Perry). The narrative is divided between Harry and Robin and occasionally other characters. The story builds slowly as these characters tell us what really happened and, as secrets are revealed, the story quickly picks up steam as it rushes to its surprising and shocking end – one I can honestly say ‘I didn’t see that coming’. It is a tale of great loss and bad decisions, of secrets and infidelities, of the bonds that hold families together and the tragedies that break them apart and it is one heck of a compelling psychological thriller. show less

We all take risks every day. When we do it consciously, we weigh up the chances that something will go horribly wrong and having determined the odds are with us that nothing bad will happen, we do whatever it is we've been considering. But what about that slim percentage of times that the unthinkable does in fact happen? How do we live with ourselves, knowing that we chose the risk that led to terrible loss or tragedy or regret? And what happens if we can't accept it? These questions and more swirl through the tense plot of Karen Perry's (the pen name for authors Paul Perry and Karen Gillece) novel, The Innocent Sleep.

Harry and Robin are artists who have settled in Tangiers because of the quality of light. They have settled into their show more chosen community there and have a three year old son Dillon. He's not the easiest of toddlers,incredibly difficult to settle into sleep and so when, on the eve of Robin's birthday, Harry realizes that he hasn't picked up her present, just a five minute walk away, he leaves the sleeping child in their flat and goes to collect it. It was at that moment that the world cracked open. An earthquake ravages Tangiers and the building where they had lived is leveled. Dillon's body is never found.

Living in Dublin five years on, Harry and Robin are trying to carve a new life out of the rubble of the old. Robin is newly pregnant and working as an architect while Harry is giving up his stand alone studio and moving his work back into the garage thanks to the economic stresses of the time. But on his final day at the studio, he has to make his way through a rally where he spots a young boy he is convinced is Dillon. Harry had searched and searched for his son after the earthquake, always certain that no body meant that the boy had survived and now that he's seen him on the street, he cannot rest until he tracks this child down. He is completely obsessed. While Robin doesn't believe him, the cursory reappearance of a child who could be Dillon unravels their carefully constructed new life. Secrets and lies emerge, guilt rears its head again, and innocence has to be redefined. The tale of their life in Tangiers changes from one of artistic fulfillment and familial happiness ending in enormous grief to one of furtiveness, illicitness, and infidelity. And the unwritten story of their future metamorphoses right before the reader's eyes as both Harry an Robin's secrets are revealed.

The story is told in an alternating first person narrative so that both Harry and Robin can tell the story directly and neither of them are entirely truthful with the reader until they have to be. The pacing of the novel is uneven, very slow in the beginning but building tension quickly towards the end and the plot itself felt drawn out. The surprising ending comes after a hysterical, frantic crescendo. And while it would seem as if parents who have lost a child and are devastated by their loss should be sympathetic characters, they weren't really. In fact, there are really no good guys here. Not even relatable guys. The story does raise issues of the bounds of creativity, all-consuming grief and obsession, mental illness, the limits of forgiveness, and horrifying regret over wrong choices but it couches it all in choices that are hard, if not impossible, to overlook. show less

This is a psychological thriller that explores the effect of lies & secrets on a marriage. It's also one hell of a roller coaster ride.
We first meet Harry & Robin in Tangier. It's 2005, the night of Robin's birthday & their lives are about to change forever. I don't want to give too much away but Harry makes some choices prior to an earthquake hitting the area that result in the loss of Dillon, their 3 year old son. No remains were ever found in the pile of rubble that used to be their home.
Fast forward to 2010 Dublin where Harry & Robin have recently moved into her grandparents' old house. Much like their marriage, it's a little worn around the edges, in need of repair.
They met in art college about 15 years ago. After graduating, they show more travelled, painting the people & places they saw. Seduced by the culture & beautiful light in Tangier, they settled there & soon had a group of friends including the enigmatic Cozimo. After losing Dillon, Robin returned to Ireland but Harry stayed on, searching & filing reports with every agency he could think of. Eventually he went home to Dublin. But his obsession with finding Dillon alive led to a breakdown & landed him in hospital.
Robin nursed him back to mental health & he started to paint again. But Robin put away her brushes & trained as an architect. Money is tight in these times of austerity & in an effort to save some cash, Harry closes his studio to work at home. Walking back that last day, he gets caught up in a crowd of demonstrators. In the midst of the chaos, he spots a young boy....a boy who looks just like Dillon.
This is the start of an extremely complex & twisted plot. Both Harry & Robin have major secrets they've kept from each other & one by one they're exposed as Harry disintegrates, caught up in his obsession again. The author does an admirable job of portraying their grief & guilt and you sympathize with their situation. But there are also times when it's really hard to like either of them. As the history of the 5 years spent in Tangier is slowly revealed in flashbacks, you learn neither of them is blameless & bad decisions made then are directly responsible for what is unfolding now.
There are many peripheral characters in both periods & more than once I was fooled when I thought I knew the good guys from the bad, who was right & who was wrong. It's an intricate, action packed story impossible to summarize & all I'll say about the ending is 2 things: in the last few pages there is a twist I never saw coming & the finale left me gutted.
If someone had recommended this novel to me, saying it was the story of a couple trying to get over the loss of a child, I would have smiled...thanked them...and put it back on the shelf. Don't be fooled. This is so much more & would make an excellent choice for a book club. show less

The setting of Tangiers is what first drew me to this book, but many other things kept me avidly reading. I originally thought Harry was a very easy character to dislike, quite frankly I found him to be somewhat of a jerk. Felt so sorry for his wife, but of course things were not quite what they seemed. An earthquake, a destroyed building and a dead child sent this couple reeling, and they returned to Dublin to try to make a fresh start.

Many, many revelations, some stellar writing, twists and turns, and secrets kept me turning the pages. A novel of deceit, of the past coming back to haunt the future all make this one very good debut novel. Definitely a author I will be watching.

ARC from Netgalley.

Five years ago, Harry and Robin suffered the most devastating loss any couple can face: the death of their three-year-old son, Dillon. Although they've picked up the pieces of their lives and moved on, that loss resonates through every aspect of their life together, perhaps even beginning to drive them apart, until Robin announces she's pregnant, and Harry thinks a new beginning might be right around around the corner after all.

Then, on a crowded Dublin street, Harry catches a glimpse of an eight-year-old boy he's sure is Dillon. He becomes obsessed with finding this boy, and his obsession threatens to tear apart everything he and Robin have managed to rebuild over the last five years.

Told alternately from Harry's and Robin's show more perspectives, The Innocent Sleep is a twisty-turny trip through the damaged marriage of damaged people. Neither member of the couple is particularly likeable, but the story is fascinating, and the writing good enough to stick with them through their respective journeys.

Many thanks to LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program for the opportunity to read this book. show less

Incredible! This book had me hooked by the very first pages and never stopped drawing me further and further into the story. What luck to have this to read as one of my last books of 2013! The characters were very vividly drawn, particularly Harry, but even secondary characters such as Spencer and Cozimo were clear to me. I felt sorry for, feared, and disliked Harry all at the same time. I think that's pretty good characterization. I thought the alternating voices in chapters was handled very well and I liked it, for some reason it made the book more intimate. I loved the settings, particularly in Tangier, and again liked the back-and-forth switch between the places. And the ending. The ending sent chills up my spine.

I don't think I've show more ever read a book with a story line like this before and I'm really happy I had the chance to read The Innocent Sleep. Can you tell I liked this book? show less