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How to Sleep at Night
Win a free print copy of this book!
9 days and 08:42:53
50 copies available
U.S. only
A sharply observed comedy of manners about straight marriage, gay marriage, and family ties stretched thin by politics, How to Sleep at Night is a witty and whip-smart debut reminiscent of Fleishman Is in Trouble and Emma Straub, by the New York Times book reporter.
Meet Ethan and Gabe. A devoted couple since their early twenties, they have successful careers, an adorable daughter, and a house in the New Jersey suburbs. Sure, they may have slowly drifted to different ends of the political spectrum, but their marriage still has its spark. Then one night Ethan makes a shocking he wants to run for Congress as a Republican — but only if he has progressive Gabe’s blessing. For weeks a slightly queasy Gabe struggles between supporting his husband’s dream and maintaining his own lefty ideals. He can feel himself slowly pulled under the tide of Ethan’s political ambitions, even as he becomes widely known as a conservative spouse.
In a nearby town, suburban mom Nicole wonders what happened to her younger self—living in New York City, freely dating men and women, and on a path to a career in the art world. Bored and frustrated, Nicole feels like an accessory in husband’s life and she yearns for something of her own. She finds it one fateful morning when an old flame re-enters her life unexpectedly. That woman is Ethan’s sister Kate.
A political reporter at a major newspaper, Kate has reached the top of her profession, and her career is at the very center of her life. But the adrenaline rush of chasing a story has lost its thrill. When Nicole—the woman who broke her heart—slides into her DMs just as her brother starts his controversial congressional run, Kate’s life is thrown into a tailspin that threatens to derail the success she’s worked so hard to achieve.
A witty and knowing novel about romantic and sibling love, ambition, monogamy, and the ways in which our identities evolve over time, How to Sleep at Night marks the debut of an accomplished novelist with the verve of Jennifer Close, J. Courtney Sullivan, Nick Hornby, and Emma Straub.
Meet Ethan and Gabe. A devoted couple since their early twenties, they have successful careers, an adorable daughter, and a house in the New Jersey suburbs. Sure, they may have slowly drifted to different ends of the political spectrum, but their marriage still has its spark. Then one night Ethan makes a shocking he wants to run for Congress as a Republican — but only if he has progressive Gabe’s blessing. For weeks a slightly queasy Gabe struggles between supporting his husband’s dream and maintaining his own lefty ideals. He can feel himself slowly pulled under the tide of Ethan’s political ambitions, even as he becomes widely known as a conservative spouse.
In a nearby town, suburban mom Nicole wonders what happened to her younger self—living in New York City, freely dating men and women, and on a path to a career in the art world. Bored and frustrated, Nicole feels like an accessory in husband’s life and she yearns for something of her own. She finds it one fateful morning when an old flame re-enters her life unexpectedly. That woman is Ethan’s sister Kate.
A political reporter at a major newspaper, Kate has reached the top of her profession, and her career is at the very center of her life. But the adrenaline rush of chasing a story has lost its thrill. When Nicole—the woman who broke her heart—slides into her DMs just as her brother starts his controversial congressional run, Kate’s life is thrown into a tailspin that threatens to derail the success she’s worked so hard to achieve.
A witty and knowing novel about romantic and sibling love, ambition, monogamy, and the ways in which our identities evolve over time, How to Sleep at Night marks the debut of an accomplished novelist with the verve of Jennifer Close, J. Courtney Sullivan, Nick Hornby, and Emma Straub.
304 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication January 7, 2025
About the author
Elizabeth Harris
1 book43 followersElizabeth Harris is an award-winning reporter at The New York Times where she covers books and the publishing industry. "How To Sleep At Night" is her first novel. She lives in New York City with her wife and kids.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 17, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️😭
Ethan Keller is running for Congress in a conservative district in New Jersey. He is a new conservative, a gay man in a devoted marriage with a young daughter. He believes that the way to change his party is from the inside, and wants to represent New Jersey in Congress. His husband, Gabe, is a history teacher at an elite Manhattan school. Gabe absolutely hates Ethan‘s politics, even though he loves his husband. They make some mistakes.
Ethan‘s sister, Kate, is a reporter for one of the top newspapers in the country, (this is supposed to be the New York Times) she has never quite gotten over her college relationship with Nicole. But, she appears on cable news programs often and her career is soaring. She makes some mistakes
Nicole is the mother of an eight-year-old and a five-year-old, married to Austin, who loves to golf. Nichole is a good mom and housewife, but she cannot shake the idea that she was meant for something else in this world, beyond her relationship to her husband and children. One day, she sees her former flame Kate on a cable news program. She makes some mistakes.
I honestly had a hard time rating this. It’s very well written, and I know that it will stay with me for a long time. One great thing I can say about this book is that Donald Trump doesn’t appear to exist in this universe. But the same kind of political environment definitely exists in their world as exists in our today. I do feel like it is a realistic portrayal of what it is like to be in a marriage where your politics are different, your ideas behind relationships are different. Even what it is like to be queer in America. This really just isn’t my type of story, because, I’m pretty big on happy endings, hopeful stories, and my favorite books can best be described as heartwarming. This is not that. It would be PollyAnnaIsh to attack this subject matter in that way, so I don’t think it could have been any less depressing. It’s interesting that this book will come out a few weeks before the inauguration. Four years after the attempted coup at the capitol. Interesting timing, William Morrow. Elizabeth Harris is an author to watch.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the arc. Book to be published January 7, 2025.
#booksbooksbooks #bookstagram #booklover #arcreview #booktok #netgalley #bookrecommendations #howtosleepatnight
Ethan Keller is running for Congress in a conservative district in New Jersey. He is a new conservative, a gay man in a devoted marriage with a young daughter. He believes that the way to change his party is from the inside, and wants to represent New Jersey in Congress. His husband, Gabe, is a history teacher at an elite Manhattan school. Gabe absolutely hates Ethan‘s politics, even though he loves his husband. They make some mistakes.
Ethan‘s sister, Kate, is a reporter for one of the top newspapers in the country, (this is supposed to be the New York Times) she has never quite gotten over her college relationship with Nicole. But, she appears on cable news programs often and her career is soaring. She makes some mistakes
Nicole is the mother of an eight-year-old and a five-year-old, married to Austin, who loves to golf. Nichole is a good mom and housewife, but she cannot shake the idea that she was meant for something else in this world, beyond her relationship to her husband and children. One day, she sees her former flame Kate on a cable news program. She makes some mistakes.
I honestly had a hard time rating this. It’s very well written, and I know that it will stay with me for a long time. One great thing I can say about this book is that Donald Trump doesn’t appear to exist in this universe. But the same kind of political environment definitely exists in their world as exists in our today. I do feel like it is a realistic portrayal of what it is like to be in a marriage where your politics are different, your ideas behind relationships are different. Even what it is like to be queer in America. This really just isn’t my type of story, because, I’m pretty big on happy endings, hopeful stories, and my favorite books can best be described as heartwarming. This is not that. It would be PollyAnnaIsh to attack this subject matter in that way, so I don’t think it could have been any less depressing. It’s interesting that this book will come out a few weeks before the inauguration. Four years after the attempted coup at the capitol. Interesting timing, William Morrow. Elizabeth Harris is an author to watch.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the arc. Book to be published January 7, 2025.
#booksbooksbooks #bookstagram #booklover #arcreview #booktok #netgalley #bookrecommendations #howtosleepatnight
August 9, 2024
I was thrilled to be an early reader on this meaningful, funny, wise book. As we dive once again into political turmoil, it’s fascinating to see the art produced from politics and our fractured, national climate, particularly this beautiful story that tells of our divisions and what brings us together through the lens of love, identity, and finding yourself again. And makes you laugh. Stunning debut from a New York Times reporter, I have followed for a long time.
October 4, 2024
This started off interesting but somehow got duller as time went on. A strange situation for a book that wants to bring biting commentary. Ultimately the heart of the book is very old-fashioned and not really that interested in fully addressing the problems we're presented at the start.
Mixed political party marriages are certainly something that has been more top of mind the last 8 years. Harris' novel struggles because she only partway acknowledges the truth of that divide. Trump doesn't exist in this book and Trump-ism only sort of does. That is, I think, the fatal flaw of the novel. Because Trump is why relationships have gotten so much harder across the political divide. And it makes it even harder to make any sense of Ethan, a gay Republican. Yes, the Republican party in the book has a loudly bigoted faction, but in the book this is something that is overcome-able. Something you just have to pretend isn't there so you can get an endorsement and win a race and then actually do good things. Yes there are politicians like this, but it's hard to imagine Gabe, the vibrant high school teacher being married to gay Mitt Romney, which is what the book wants us to believe. I never could believe that Ethan existed. I never could believe that Gabe would stay happy with him. And it's very frustrating to over and over again have Gabe vent his righteous (and extremely justifiable!!) anger only to then apologize and walk it back because the way he expressed it was not socially appropriate.
Kate and Nicole have a more interesting and more believable dynamic. Nicole treated Kate badly when they were young. Now Kate is a workaholic and Nicole has left her work entirely to stay home with two children after marrying a man. They reconnect, sparks fly, and it's very clear that this could once again go extremely badly! Not just for Nicole, it was actually Kate I worried about more. Nicole SUCKS, and I will say that the way Harris draws her is just 100% accurate, this kind of chaotic person who focuses so much on herself that she cannot see that she is being terrible to her husband and her mistress feels very true to life. But there's nowhere to really go with it. The justifications for Nicole to stay in her marriage always feel halfhearted. And it never feels like you can trust Nicole to be a good partner for Kate's future. So the stakes just aren't there.
If this book was really willing to go for it, to let this world feel more real, to not cop out so often, it could have been interesting.
It's also written in so many short scenes, many of which just feel like repeats of previous scenes, showing us no real progression in plot and nothing new in character. I wanted tighter, sharper, MORE.
Mixed political party marriages are certainly something that has been more top of mind the last 8 years. Harris' novel struggles because she only partway acknowledges the truth of that divide. Trump doesn't exist in this book and Trump-ism only sort of does. That is, I think, the fatal flaw of the novel. Because Trump is why relationships have gotten so much harder across the political divide. And it makes it even harder to make any sense of Ethan, a gay Republican. Yes, the Republican party in the book has a loudly bigoted faction, but in the book this is something that is overcome-able. Something you just have to pretend isn't there so you can get an endorsement and win a race and then actually do good things. Yes there are politicians like this, but it's hard to imagine Gabe, the vibrant high school teacher being married to gay Mitt Romney, which is what the book wants us to believe. I never could believe that Ethan existed. I never could believe that Gabe would stay happy with him. And it's very frustrating to over and over again have Gabe vent his righteous (and extremely justifiable!!) anger only to then apologize and walk it back because the way he expressed it was not socially appropriate.
Kate and Nicole have a more interesting and more believable dynamic. Nicole treated Kate badly when they were young. Now Kate is a workaholic and Nicole has left her work entirely to stay home with two children after marrying a man. They reconnect, sparks fly, and it's very clear that this could once again go extremely badly! Not just for Nicole, it was actually Kate I worried about more. Nicole SUCKS, and I will say that the way Harris draws her is just 100% accurate, this kind of chaotic person who focuses so much on herself that she cannot see that she is being terrible to her husband and her mistress feels very true to life. But there's nowhere to really go with it. The justifications for Nicole to stay in her marriage always feel halfhearted. And it never feels like you can trust Nicole to be a good partner for Kate's future. So the stakes just aren't there.
If this book was really willing to go for it, to let this world feel more real, to not cop out so often, it could have been interesting.
It's also written in so many short scenes, many of which just feel like repeats of previous scenes, showing us no real progression in plot and nothing new in character. I wanted tighter, sharper, MORE.
August 12, 2024
I was given an advanced copy of this, and I haven't stopped thinking of it since - especially in the current political climate. It profiles two different relationships, one a married couple in which one of the men has become a Republican and decides to run for office, horrifying his liberal spouse. The sister of that man (and best friend of his husband) is a political journalist who reconnects with a former girlfriend, who now is living a picture-perfect Upper Middle Class suburban life. They begin an affair, and as both the relationship and the campaign heat up both couples start spinning towards something increasingly unstable.
Harris gets right under the skin of all of these characters, and it's the kind of book where you forget these aren't real people you know, and you miss them at the end of the book. And the insight into the particular pressure cooker that is a campaign - from both the inside and the outside - is something I think about a lot these days (not to mention the challenges of political divisions within a relationship.) It's smart, sharp, funny, and moving, and it stays with you. It's great.
Harris gets right under the skin of all of these characters, and it's the kind of book where you forget these aren't real people you know, and you miss them at the end of the book. And the insight into the particular pressure cooker that is a campaign - from both the inside and the outside - is something I think about a lot these days (not to mention the challenges of political divisions within a relationship.) It's smart, sharp, funny, and moving, and it stays with you. It's great.
September 19, 2024
“Politics makes strange bedfellows” takes on new meaning in this funny, smart, sexy and pitch-perfect, page-turner portrayal of modern LGBTQ relationships. Along with Fleishman Is In Trouble, there are touches of Veep and Brothers & Sisters, to name a few of my favorite TV shows. Fans of Jennifer Egan and Sally Rooney will eat it up.
October 6, 2024
I couldn’t put this down! Fast read and beautifully written!
September 24, 2024
Relationships in flux and pitch-perfect dialogue
Elizabeth Harris, who Goodreads identifies as a reporter on the book and publishing beat at The New York Times, can always, if she decides to stop working as a journalist or loses interest in writing fiction, turn her talents toward writing screenplays, since the dialogue and pacing in "How to Sleep at Night", her first novel, are pitch perfect and adroit. Here, I open my copy of "Sleep" to, let’s see… an arbitrary page 28, where Harris describes (paragraphs removed for reasons of space) the interaction between Gabe, a teacher, and a colleague:
"The math teacher finished her copies and Gabe stepped up to make his packets. “Morning!” a voice boomed behind him, startling Gabe enough that he gave an embarrassing little yelp. Michael Limon, the AP Government teacher, materialized at his side. “Hi, Michael,” Gabe said. “Making a lot of copies?” “Yeah, sorry. It’s going to be a little while.” “No problem,” Limon said, leaning against the cinderblock wall to wait. “Hey, how old is your daughter now?” “She’s five. How far along is your wife?” “37 weeks! She could go any day. Man, I’ve barely held a baby before, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to be doing!” “You’ll figure it out,” Gabe told him. “Babies have very few needs at the beginning. They eat, they sleep, they poop. You’ll figure out how to manage those, and then they’ll move onto new tricks. But it happens slowly, so you’ll be fine. More tired than you’ve ever been, but fine!”
See what I mean? The pitch, as well as the narrative pace, are flawless, making "Sleep" into an effortless journey in 21st century verisimilitude. And, if you read the book, you will also see that "Sleep" features sensitive character development, believable relationship dilemmas, and some poignant moments, as two marriages, one gay, and one straight, scuttle toward disaster.
The Goodreads’s synopsis of "Sleep" is pretty good, since it captures the conundrums facing Gabe and Ethan, Nicole and Kate, and Niclole and Austin, who is Nicole's New Jersey husband and, weirdly, not troubled by his wife's sexual shenanigans, provided they don’t involve another man. Here’s how Nicole, who once was a rising star in the art scene, feels about her life as a suburban mom.
o “Being a mother was unpaid and undervalued, and it was a hard… job that never stopped. It came with unimaginably demanding bosses, whose vomit you were expected to catch in your bare hands. Especially when the kids were little, there was always a mess to clean, always a need to be addressed. You couldn’t sit at your computer and read trashy websites for an hour if you were feeling a little hungover."
o "Nicole respected the position, but she became a stay-at-home mom by accident. She did not have the patience for it, and she had dreamed of other things. She felt like she had tripped and slammed face first into the pavement of someone else’s life. She did not, for example, particularly enjoy other people’s children, who took up a large portion of the day when you stayed home. This had been an unpleasant surprise…”
"How to Sleep at Night" has strong characters and narrative momentum and held my interest to the very end, when Ethan’s Congressional candidacy… well, just read the book… but he gets his comeuppance, sort of.
Highly recommended.
Elizabeth Harris, who Goodreads identifies as a reporter on the book and publishing beat at The New York Times, can always, if she decides to stop working as a journalist or loses interest in writing fiction, turn her talents toward writing screenplays, since the dialogue and pacing in "How to Sleep at Night", her first novel, are pitch perfect and adroit. Here, I open my copy of "Sleep" to, let’s see… an arbitrary page 28, where Harris describes (paragraphs removed for reasons of space) the interaction between Gabe, a teacher, and a colleague:
"The math teacher finished her copies and Gabe stepped up to make his packets. “Morning!” a voice boomed behind him, startling Gabe enough that he gave an embarrassing little yelp. Michael Limon, the AP Government teacher, materialized at his side. “Hi, Michael,” Gabe said. “Making a lot of copies?” “Yeah, sorry. It’s going to be a little while.” “No problem,” Limon said, leaning against the cinderblock wall to wait. “Hey, how old is your daughter now?” “She’s five. How far along is your wife?” “37 weeks! She could go any day. Man, I’ve barely held a baby before, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to be doing!” “You’ll figure it out,” Gabe told him. “Babies have very few needs at the beginning. They eat, they sleep, they poop. You’ll figure out how to manage those, and then they’ll move onto new tricks. But it happens slowly, so you’ll be fine. More tired than you’ve ever been, but fine!”
See what I mean? The pitch, as well as the narrative pace, are flawless, making "Sleep" into an effortless journey in 21st century verisimilitude. And, if you read the book, you will also see that "Sleep" features sensitive character development, believable relationship dilemmas, and some poignant moments, as two marriages, one gay, and one straight, scuttle toward disaster.
The Goodreads’s synopsis of "Sleep" is pretty good, since it captures the conundrums facing Gabe and Ethan, Nicole and Kate, and Niclole and Austin, who is Nicole's New Jersey husband and, weirdly, not troubled by his wife's sexual shenanigans, provided they don’t involve another man. Here’s how Nicole, who once was a rising star in the art scene, feels about her life as a suburban mom.
o “Being a mother was unpaid and undervalued, and it was a hard… job that never stopped. It came with unimaginably demanding bosses, whose vomit you were expected to catch in your bare hands. Especially when the kids were little, there was always a mess to clean, always a need to be addressed. You couldn’t sit at your computer and read trashy websites for an hour if you were feeling a little hungover."
o "Nicole respected the position, but she became a stay-at-home mom by accident. She did not have the patience for it, and she had dreamed of other things. She felt like she had tripped and slammed face first into the pavement of someone else’s life. She did not, for example, particularly enjoy other people’s children, who took up a large portion of the day when you stayed home. This had been an unpleasant surprise…”
"How to Sleep at Night" has strong characters and narrative momentum and held my interest to the very end, when Ethan’s Congressional candidacy… well, just read the book… but he gets his comeuppance, sort of.
Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews