Broken Sleep
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Author | Bruce Bauman |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jon Gray (aka gray318) |
| Language | English |
| Genre | political novel, picaresque, tragicomedy, postmodern, Jewish American literature, encyclopedic novel |
| Publisher | Other Press |
Publication date | November 2, 2015 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 642 |
| ISBN | 9781590514481 |
| OCLC | 968985724 |
| LC Class | PS3602.A955 |
Broken Sleep: an American Dream is the second novel by American writer Bruce Bauman, published in 2015. It follows the exploits of the powerful Savant family, including rock star-cum-US presidential candidate Alchemy Savant, his half-brother Moses Teumer, and their brilliant but insane mother Salome Savant.
The novel chronicles 60 years of U.S. politics and pop culture, from the aftermath of World War II leading up to a speculative 2020 presidential election. The novel touches on many topics, including rock music, postmodern art, celebrity, insanity, terminal illness, the Holocaust, and United States presidential election politics. It makes political references to the fake news website phenomenon, the rise of a third party to save a failing two-party system, and a grass-roots movement for partition and secession in California. Its discussion of Jewish-American identity has led to its categorization as a Jewish literary novel in the vein of Saul Bellow.[1]
The novel has an asynchronous narrative structure that weaves together four major narratives:
- The Songs of Salome – these portions of the novel are told from the perspective of the central mother-figure, Salome Savant. A self-described “sensation artist,” Salome recounts her rise in the art world, as well as her experiences as the mother to the phenomenally popular rock star Alchemy Savant and to her disavowed firstborn Moses Teumer. Salome denies time's existence and frequently communes with identities she has inhabited in the past, including the Salome (disciple) who witnessed the Crucifixion and Lou Andreas-Salomé, lover to the poet Rilke.
- The Moses Chronicles – told from the perspective of an omniscient third-person narrator, these chapters largely focus on Moses Teumer, a middle-aged history professor. After a diagnosis of leukemia makes finding a donor for a bone marrow transplant the difference between living and dying, Moses discovers that he is not the son of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, but a Nazi war criminal. The discovery also unites him with his half-brother Alchemy Savant, and the two team up to revolutionize the U.S. political system.
- Memoirs of a Useless Good-For-Nuthin’ – these chapters are told from the perspective of the novel's picaresque antihero Ricky McFinn, aka “Ambitious Mindswallow.” They chart the development, rise, and breakup of the rock band the Insatiables, led by Alchemy Savant. A self-described “[t]wisted branch in a warped family tree,” Ambitious was born and raised in Queens. Throughout the novel, he struggles to reconcile his superstardom with the values and politics ingrained in him from his working-class, poor-white upbringing.
- The Canticles of Hannah – the third-person narrator gives insight into how the novel's second mother figure, the Jewish-American Hannah Teumer, came to marry a Nazi and adopt baby Moses.
The narratives are loosely related, linked together if not by chronological time, then by common characters and themes. But the novel hints at another way its four narratives relate to one another—namely that they were collected, compiled, and arranged by one of the novel's secondary characters, Jay Bernes, and given the alternative title "the Book of J." Jay, aka "J," is identified in the novel's back matter as the “Gifter of the Book of J,” while the character Persephone, who mistakenly self-identifies as Moses's niece, claims in the introduction that “auntie jay gave me a gift, the Book of J.” The author Bruce Bauman has also alluded to the Book of J's importance in relation to the novel's religious themes.[2]