Honeymoons may be sullied by hiccups such as rain and travel delays, but few hiccups compare to the nightmare British newlyweds Evelyn and Richard endure on a Greek island in Scarlett Thomas's The Sleepwalkers, an epistolary thriller that throws a gut punch to the concept of marital bliss. The pair should have known they'd have honeymoon problems after their disastrous wedding, where an attendee blurted out Richard's "most shameful secret." Thomas (41-Love: A Memoir) slowly reveals that secret in the long letters that compose the novel, in which Evelyn, an actress and playwright struggling to revive her career, explains to Richard why she left him, and Richard fesses up to atrocious behavior.
Thomas ratchets up the creepiness by introducing shady characters and strange goings-on. The former include hotel owner Isabella, who flirts with Richard but inexplicably hates Evelyn. For the latter? How about items that appear in and disappear from the newlyweds' room, which Isabella insists remain unlocked? Then there's the story Evelyn and Richard hear about the sleepwalkers, a husband and wife who "walked into the sea together" during a storm the previous year. Toss in more suspicious denizens, an icky backstory involving Richard's father, and a film producer who wants to option the sleepwalkers idea, and the pieces are in place for a satisfyingly unsettling adventure. If readers can overlook Evelyn's tendency to write 100-page letters complete with dialogue in quotation marks, they will likely enjoy this ghoulish tale and its revelations. The wedding and honeymoon may have been horrific, but here's a toast to the novel. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer