Inspired Sleep

Bonnie Saks of Cambridge, Massachusetts, needs help. Her unfinished dissertation is flung across her desk. Her ex-husband has decamped to South America, leaving her with their two sons. And most pressingly of all, she has a debilitating case of insomnia. So when she sees a sign that asks, ARE YOU SLEEPING TOO LITTLE?, Bonnie immediately signs up for a state-of-the-art study. Under the care of Ian Ogelvie, a hotshot researcher with visionary ideas, and with the aid of an experimental drug, she enters a vague and happy dream state that may or may not be good for her.

With a keen, panoramic eye, "Inspired Sleep" encompasses everything from the slippery evasions of love to the intricate network of commerce that binds together Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, and managed care. It gives us a richly satiric and exuberant portrait of millennial America -- its believers, hustlers, prospering careerists, and shadow population of lost, sleepless souls -- dramatizing one of the most salient questions of our times: Are antidepressant drugs an escape from or a channel to our genuine selves? It is at once both profoundly illuminating and terrifically funny.