A review by wetherspoonsgf
Sleep Has His House by Anna Kavan

dark emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

In the seminar for this book there was a great moment where me and the girl next to me suddenly realised not everyone else had connected with it like we had, which is fair when you consider Anna Kavan is a woman who had a heroin-adjacent psychotic break that caused her to rename herself after one of her own characters.

SHHH (an ironically appropriate acronym) is 200 pages of the kind of panic attack-esque questioning you ask yourself falling asleep as a kid too inquisitive for the adults around them, rendered in some of the best constructed and theorised dream sequences I’ve ever read. When a book is so good it makes you consider the academic value of Surrealist Dream Theory that’s gotta be worth something.