{"id":11416,"date":"2025-07-10T06:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T06:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=11416"},"modified":"2025-08-11T19:48:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T19:48:05","slug":"sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/10\/sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Smothering for Mother\u2019s Sake<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In her debut novel Sleep<\/em>, Honor Jones considers the ramifications of suffering childhood trauma in silence to appease one\u2019s parents. Warning: this review contains spoilers.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review<\/em> by<\/em> Megan Foster<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I learned when to keep quiet. As a child I navigated seas of eggshells, wary of my mother\u2019s offhanded insults, my father\u2019s temper, and my older brother\u2019s bullying. I could never satisfy my parents, could never pacify them when I failed to meet their expectations. Yet they frequently lauded my brother. It\u2019s no wonder that years later, my parents wouldn\u2019t help keep their son accountable for his recent cruelty, refusing to hear\u2013\u2013let alone to acknowledge\u2013\u2013what exactly had happened between us. My mother insisted it was our business, not hers. Even as an adult I didn\u2019t push back, slipping instead into the silence I\u2019d kept so often in that old household.<\/p>

Then I woke one morning to an empty bank account. My parents had taken my money without a word, whilst preparing to hand it over to a scammer. For once I didn\u2019t keep quiet.<\/p>

\u00a0\u201cI wonder why it is,\u201d I said, \u201cthat when it comes to asking you for help keeping my abusive brother accountable, you tell me, \u2018You\u2019re a full-grown, married woman. Deal with it yourself.\u2019 But when it comes to my own bank account, I\u2019m apparently not able to handle it.\u201d<\/p>

The incident partially demonstrated that when it came to shouldering my trauma, my mother would rather step aside; at the same time, she refused to treat me like a stable adult. Margaret, the protagonist of Honor Jones\u2019 debut novel, Sleep<\/em>, experiences a similar predicament. My favorite novels tend to leave me reeling, and Sleep<\/em> certainly packs a punch. The novel is an unflinching portrayal of familial conflict, particularly between a mother and daughter. It hit awfully close to home.<\/p>

Sleep <\/em>begins with ten-year-old Margaret in her suburban home, enjoying sunny summer days of sleepovers and games. But ultimately, her mother Elizabeth\u2019s emotional instability coupled with her older brother Neal\u2019s vile intrusiveness overshadow it all. The remainder of the novel follows Margaret as a thirty-five-year-old, still recouping from that fateful summer while navigating motherhood, divorce, and newfound love. Throughout her book, Jones adeptly explores the consequences of warped roles between mother and daughter. Young Margaret must ceaselessly cater to Elizabeth\u2019s whims and needs, while an adult Margaret struggles to assert herself against an elderly Elizabeth. Keeping her childhood trauma quiet solely to appease her mother consequently makes it difficult to prove her autonomy as an adult.<\/p>

Even at the outset of the novel, it\u2019s crystal clear that Margaret\u2019s mother favors her older brother. \u201cElizabeth loved him more because he was so unlikable. That was just the kind of thing that mothers did.\u201d It goes beyond Elizabeth preferring one child over the other. She tends to hone her capricious outbursts against Margaret specifically. A simple shopping trip is laced with passive aggressive barbs towards Margaret, whereas her brother gets his own shoes without fuss. \u201cWhen she\u2019s being a little mean to me, I think she\u2019s having fun, [Margaret] thought but did not say. She wouldn\u2019t betray Elizabeth, not even to Neal.\u201d At the tender age of ten, Margaret is already conscientious of her own silence. Unlike most children, she does not need to be told to keep quiet but willfully does so as a favor to her mother, whom she feels equally required to protect and to pacify.<\/p>

Margaret\u2019s silence is motivated by a sticky combination: fear of her mother\u2019s volatility and fear for her mother\u2019s well-being. In one incident Elizabeth blames Margaret for her older brother\u2019s prank calls, pinning her against the wall and yelling so forcibly that Margaret\u2019s head repeatedly bangs against the wall. She only stops after Neal\u2019s friend Danny confesses to the prank, and leaves her daughter without a word. Elizabeth repeatedly proves to be a force to be reckoned with, a woman who always wins her arguments because few are willing to challenge her. No one wants to see her snap and break from the tailored, immaculate image she presents to the public eye. Despite Elizabeth\u2019s tectonic mood shifts, Margaret loves her mother and does her utmost to make her happy. More than that, she takes it upon herself to guard her mother\u2019s mental state. Margaret determines this after learning about Elizabeth\u2019s attempted suicide: \u201c\u2018I wasn\u2019t in my right mind,\u2019 Elizabeth had said when she told Margaret about the pills. It hadn\u2019t occurred to Margaret before then that you had more than one mind to be in. It was now something that she worried about: protecting\u2026the right mind of Elizabeth.\u201d Unfortunately, protecting Elizabeth often means that Margaret must suffer in her stead.<\/p>

During that fateful summer, ten-year-old Margaret discovers a mysterious hole in her bathroom wall\u2013\u2013and within it, a video camera. When she hides the camera and soon finds Neal searching for it, Margaret realizes exactly whom it belongs to. She prepares to tell Elizabeth, imagining how her mother would protect her and send Neal away to boarding school. Instead, Elizabeth finds cartoons on the video camera, then lets her son take it away. Margaret is on her own.<\/p>

Elizabeth hadn\u2019t rewound the tape, so now they would never know what was on it. Whatever happened next, no one was going to protect her. Too late, Margaret understood what Elizabeth\u2019s expression had meant. She had been asking for help, pleading with Margaret, just this once, for a really big favor. She\u2019d been saying, Please don\u2019t make me look.<\/h2>

Going forward, Margaret keeps her secrets to herself for Elizabeth\u2019s sake.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Not all secrets must stay hidden forever.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Fast forward twenty-five years, and Margaret is exploring the joys of a new lover as a divorced mother with two young daughters. The shadow of that one summer always creeps close at hand. \u201cWhat was it about watching her children sleep that made Margaret feel so safe? It was like she was both the mother keeping watch and a third girl in the bed, like she was standing guard over herself too.\u201d She compares herself, as a mother, to Elizabeth, allowing her own daughters to occasionally get their way after bouts of begging. Elizabeth herself spoils her grandchildren, disregarding Margaret\u2019s wishes against too many toys in her teeny New York apartment. But Margaret\u2019s having children doesn\u2019t garner Elizabeth\u2019s esteem. Elizabeth ardently disapproves of her adult daughter\u2019s decisions\u2013\u2013her divorce in particular\u2013\u2013and consequently refuses Margaret\u2019s minimal requests. Margaret struggles to stand her ground and assert her independence.<\/p>

“You can\u2019t have it both ways, Margaret. You can\u2019t ask me to come and then dictate to me what I do when I get here.”<\/h2>

“Can\u2019t I, though? It\u2019s my home. They\u2019re my children.”<\/h2>

“Stop shouting at me,” Elizabeth said.<\/h2>

I\u2019m not shouting, she thought but did not shout.<\/h2>

Margaret simply cannot win against her mother. As a child Margaret kept her mouth shut to appease her. Now as an adult Margaret has finally begun to stand up to Elizabeth, but to no avail. Elizabeth has only ever known her daughter\u2019s silent submission, and she\u2019ll settle for nothing less.<\/p>

And while Elizabeth dictates parts of Margaret\u2019s adulthood, she continues to step aside when her daughter\u2013\u2013and granddaughters\u2013\u2013are faced with genuine threats. During a visit to Elizabeth\u2019s house, Margaret\u2019s daughters get ahold of dueling pistols from Elizabeth\u2019s room. It takes desperate pleading and help from her ex-husband to wrench the pistol away from her younger child. Margaret\u2019s father comes running to the scene as well. Meanwhile Elizabeth is nowhere to be seen.<\/p>

For now all she could think about was how thin, how thin to fucking vanishing, was the line between normalcy and horror. Despite the tassels and trim\u2026danger came from all around\u2013\u2013danger from the eaves and the doors, danger like a sudden hole in the wall. No one had been hurt. Everything was fine. But where the fuck was Elizabeth? Where was her mother now?<\/h2>

Even after all those years, so much of Margaret\u2019s mother remains a mystery to her. What\u2019s more, she can never work up the nerve to ask Elizabeth the right questions\u2013\u2013ones that might explain, at long last, why Elizabeth didn\u2019t protect her daughter. On the other hand, Margaret\u2019s inability to address her mother presses her to confront her older brother instead, finally asking about that distant summer. While his answers may not completely satisfy her, they nevertheless mark a turning point for Margaret. She\u2019s broken the silence, and can finally share the fullness of her past with close people like her lover.<\/p>

Sleep<\/em> is a necessary if uncomfortable reminder that certain questions will never be answered. But Jones\u2019 exquisite novel also demonstrates that not all secrets must stay hidden forever, and that it is possible to move forward into the future with a heavy past. For Margaret, bringing things to light ultimately makes her load lighter, too.<\/p>

Perhaps we do not always need to keep quiet. What we need is the right person to listen.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Megan\u00a0Foster<\/strong>\u00a0earned an MA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago and has been a children’s bookseller across New England. She currently lives in New Haven with her husband and two cats.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sleep<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>was published by Penguin Random House on May 13, 2025.\u00a0Fare Forward<\/em>\u00a0appreciates their provision of a review copy. You can purchase a copy from the publisher\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her debut novel Sleep, Honor Jones considers the ramifications of suffering childhood trauma in silence to appease one\u2019s parents. Warning: this review contains spoilers. 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