“What surprised me most about Honor Jones’s debut novel, Sleep, wasn’t its smarts or its savvy, or even its astute renderings of motherhood, daughter-hood and the fraught enterprise of trying to regard each one through the lens of the other. No, what surprised me was that out of its careful, orderly prose — every word neatly placed as if on a well-set table — grew an exceptionally moving novel. Jones takes her cues from writers like John Cheever, Richard Yates and Virginia Woolf, all masters of the repressed and unsayable. She covers the same material — the resentments and traumas that smolder in families wrapped in a suburban idyll — and with similar delicacy and humor. But Sleep also introduces a measure of optimism and generosity I found refreshing...The novel excels when exploring this extrasensory place where we come to terms with our lives. If this sounds fey, part of the pleasure of Sleep is that it’s grounded in the prosaic; it traces a series of familial episodes that should feel banal but that are instead shot through with feeling...Jones is very good at capturing how trauma can taint even small moments like these, in subtle and insidious ways — which is perhaps why she’s styled her prose so tightly. There are no crescendos here, no soaring, looping sentences full of ecstasy or dread. Instead she’s hung her prose on a tension rod of unease, a proxy for how Margaret experiences her everyday life. It’s tidy, and it works.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Sleep by Honor Jones, is a hypnotic debut. Jones crafts a nuanced and powerful exploration of a woman’s struggle to come to terms with her past...[she] is a deft writer, and her exploration of the confusing experience of childhood violation is somehow both subtle and unsparing. The opening section of Sleep is a masterpiece of carefully crafted perspective and tone...this is a woman — and a novel — determined to avoid confrontation and drama, and it’s surprising just how hypnotic that is to witness in Jones’s carefully calibrated telling. There will be no glorious retribution, no weepy breakthrough in a therapist’s office, no clarifying moment of remembrance that shatters the leather cloak of repression. Instead, Jones traces something more delicate and, I suspect, more common: the excruciating effort to maintain a fragile peace within a thicket of fears and grievances that can’t be admitted and can’t be resolved. Margaret’s plight may feel tragic, but it’s transformed by sheer force of will — and Jones’s tempered prose — into something heroic, even hopeful.” —Washington Post

“Jones’s prose is spare but effervescent, her evocation of childhood is pitch-perfect, and she handles delicate subject matters in adroit and surprising ways.” —ELLE

“The slim debut novel is brimming with observations about family dynamics and buried pain...There is a lot of life rendered in this slim novel. Past meets present and present revisits past. And although it’s a quick read, with brilliant scenes and spot-on dialogue, the genius is in the layering. Character reflection (or lack of) is revealed in astounding ways, reverberating outward from the incident itself...beautifully written novel of childhood trauma.” —Star Tribune

“Dazzling” —The Millions

"Beautifully written debut." —New York Post

“A quiet and introspective examination of mothers, daughters, and the ripples of trauma...Beautifully written, with flashes of humor to break up Margaret's suffocating intensity and dread, this will appeal to readers of slowburn, character-driven fiction. —Booklist

“SLEEP marks the arrival of an astonishing new voice in the world of literary fiction. Honor Jones writes with honesty and courage about life’s complications and contradictions. This novel is propulsive and funny and heartbreaking.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs

“Heartbreaking, sexy, and full of humor . . . With elegant language and profound insight, Honor Jones transforms a story of family secrets into something utterly fresh, original, and exhilarating.” —Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Anita De Monte Laughs Last

“A haunting and beautiful novel about a desperate attempt to live in the present despite the tidal pull of the past…Incredibly moving.” – Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake

“A novel of quiet, devastating beauty. Honor Jones recalls a suburban childhood with such cool, funny precision – but Sleep also has a real heart, beating with courage and rage. I loved it.” – Abigail Dean, New York Times global bestselling author of Girl A

Inquiries: Bianca Flores