Awakened in the Night

Or, no really, I'm writing, I swear

The other night I was awakened at about three o’clock in the morning by Anderson Cooper saying my name.

I don’t know about you, or about writers in general, and I am aware that the sum of all anecdotes does not make data, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that many of us living the writing life have a complicated relationship with sleep. I am tempted to blame chapter books and flashlights for this, which would be both charming and on-brand for a novelist, but in truth I think it’s just biology. Many is the night that I, a preliterate child still attending a school with classrooms named after A. A. Milne characters, would be tucked into bed at nine o’clock, door reassuringly cracked, which afforded me the dual comforts of a light on the way to the bathroom and, eventually, the sound of Ed McMahon announcing the guest on Johnny Carson. In between I enjoyed* two hours of lying awake in the dark.

(Here’s a recent picture of my shadow, together with my offspring and his friend, taken at a science center. Is it relevant? Not exactly. But relevant photos for “insomnia” would do none of us any favors.)

College was the coffin nail, as I ventured out into the night more often, and also worked as a disc jockey at the university radio station, programming an experimental music show from 1 to 5 in the morning. I learned that if I made it back to my dorm before dawn, then I would be able to get to sleep. If I saw the sun on my walk home, all bets were off. These were vague days. My circadian rhythms shattered. I went full crepuscular. I also learned I could count on a solid 45 minutes on the A train.

Grad school, forget it. I mean, come on. Who even knows what happened, in grad school? I do remember going to health services once and begging for Lunesta, or something. Anything, really. “That can make you hallucinate,” the nurse practitioner warned. “You can wake up having driven your car somewhere and not to know where you are. You don’t want that, do you?” Reader, I did want that, as long as it meant I was actually asleep. I was so tired I may have even hallucinated that conversation.

Now that I am in what James Fenimore Cooper would call “the vigor of my days, though no symptoms of decay appear to have yet weakened my [wo]manhood” (really, you can see why people don’t read this guy that much anymore), I have come up with a system. Or rather, a System. It involves melatonin, and cotton sheets, and “sleep hygiene,” and a nice glass of water, and rain sounds, and an eye mask with built-in headphones, and audiobooks.

The trick is, the audiobook cannot be something I actually want to read. I must be just interested enough to listen to it rather than the whispers of my own anxieties (why *haven’t* I made more progress yet on Bonfire, huh? Riddle me that, self, here at eleven o’clock at night), but not so compelling that I force myself to stay awake to find out what happens next. My most reliable comforts then, are books that I have already read. And so, the other night, I drifted away to Newland Archer and his thwarted love for Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence. My students at Marymount are reading part of this book, my very favorite novel, for our class on Friday, and I reread it almost every year. I am also thinking about, and planning, and outlining, and almost panicked enough to start writing, a Gilded Age novel of my own. Why not let one play in my mind while I was asleep?

“Katherine Howe,” Anderson said. My eyes poinged open inside my eye mask and I pulled it up.

It was dark. My colleague was not in my house. He also wasn’t on the television, as I do not have one in my bedroom (see also: sleep hygiene).

He was in my headphones.

The Age of Innocence had ended, and my audiobook player had helpfully decided that I would probably like to hear samples of other books about the Gilded Age to decide what I wanted to listen to next. One of the books it decided I might like to buy was one of the books that I co-wrote: Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune. Anderson reads the audiobook, and so I was awakened by him reading my name as part of the credits. I can’t decide of the algorithm got it exactly right, or exactly wrong. I spent ten or fifteen minutes pondering this question to myself before choosing The House of Mirth and rolling over and going back to sleep.

So what’s next?

I’m looking forward to celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Massachusetts Center for the Book at the Massachusetts Book Awards on October 7.

Then, on October 9, I will join the fabulous women of the Whatshername women’s history podcast for Boston Witches and Writers. We will hang out in Beverly talking about the real Hannah Masury. You should come!

On October 15 I’ll be visiting the New York Junior League to talk about books and the Gilded Age (in their headquarters, which is a real honest to goodness Gilded Age mansion). If you would like me to visit your book club, church, or volunteer group, just drop me a line here.

And I really am buckling down on Bonfire. I am. Really! I swear.

*I did not enjoy them.