Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
There’s something about the feel of the New York Review Book Classics that assures you of a good read. The paper is of a thick textured stock, the covers are beautifully designed–I particularly like the fact that the inside of the covers is colored to match the palette on the outside–and the introductions are written by people who actually matter. There are so many little known treasures in this series–it’s like the Criterion Collection of paperbacks–that one wants to just own them all.
Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick was my most recent foray into the series, and it didn’t disappoint. In fact, it is one of those books that I know I will reread, in part because it’s one of those books I wish that I had written. Originally published in 1979, Sleepless Nights calls itself a novel, but it reads like a memoir or a series of reflective vignettes. The narrator is Elizabeth, and the scenes are from primarily from New York City and Lexington Kentucky–the latter Hardwick’s homeland, the former Hardwick’s home. (It’s tempting to take these as clues that our narrator is our writer, but other clues suggest that we should be wary of that identification.) There is no single plot to speak of, but the tapestry is woven too tightly to be a mere collection of stories. The main attraction here is the overwhelmingly engineered prose. The thoughtfulness of Hardwick’s style compares only to well wrought poetry. These are sentences meant to be savored like bites of a crème brulee or sips of port. They are rich on their own, and they flow one after another in a punctuated rhythm that leads the reader on more than the foregone contrivances of thrill or suspense could hope to accomplish.
I loved this book and will search out more from Hardwick. My words mean little, however, next to her prose, so I’m going to try supplementing the review with a pagescan. These are just two facing pages that give a sense of the style. I suggest you read more of the book by purchasing it.