Sleep of Memory

“Memories from some fifty years before return . . . blurring the lines between reality, dreams, and fiction. These are dark, at times violent recollections . . . but [the narrator] maintains a wry wistfulness about the comings and goings of a long life.”—New Yorker

“Sleep of Memory is a throwback to a Paris where life still happened on the terrasses, before everyone retreated into laptops and phones and before time was money, when some happenstance meeting in the morning might turn into an afternoon with an unknown ending.” —Elisabeth Zerofsky, International New York Times

“A splendid, wistful book.”—Olivia de Lamberterie, Elle

“Once again, Modiano masterfully demonstrates the ‘art of memory’ that won him the Nobel and accounts for the engrossing charm of all his work.”—Nelly Kaprièlian, Vogue (France)

“An elegant work of suggestion and misdirection”—Kirkus Reviews

“A dream-like detective tale set in Paris . . . [A] darkly evocative novel of one man's troubling past.”—Michael Autrey, Booklist

“A classic Modiano novel from its very first scene . . . A startlingly beautiful excavation of his classic themes . . . For fans and newcomers alike, this is Modiano at his very best.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[A] lovely, lilting meditation on memory and loss in mid-20th century Paris . . . [a] resonant novel.”—Nathan Goldman, Literary Hub

“Intimate and important . . . Modiano’s most personal and revelatory book.”—Mary Whipple, Seeing the World Through Books (blog)

“[A] brief, poignant volume . . . [with] a mood ably conveyed by the sensitive and spare translation of Mark Polizzotti . . . It has some of the best aphorisms one can find in Modiano. . . . Sleep of Memory manages to attach a feeling not just of unease but of genuine terror to the past.”—Thomas J. Millay, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Though foreign in every sense of the word, Sleep of Memory beautifully captures the universally ambiguous sensation of recalling a distant memory. This account is for anyone who wonders ‘whether they belonged to reality or the realm of dreams.’"—Zoe Peterson, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Immensely seductive and haunting . . . I’ve already read this little book three times.”—John Wilson, First Things (“Favorite Books of 2018”)

“Modiano’s signature voice evokes people and place masterfully, stirring readers to reflect on their own experiences and relationships.”—World Literature Today

“Brief but vast and echoing, impossible to summarize, Sleep of Memory is Modiano at his most sublime.”—Luc Sante, author of The Other Paris

"It’s thrilling to read Modiano’s narratives of a cosmic mystery so substantive, yet so personal, that it need not be named.  Though names do appear everywhere, lit up like stars above a dark landscape, mapping locations, naming the players (often with fluid identities) in a shape shifting, yet eternal drama.  In Modiano, mysteries don’t exist to be solved; instead, they are compounded.  I love the metaphorical connotations here of people one might assume have vanished, though 'they only changed neighborhoods.'"—Ann Beattie

"A lapidary master, Modiano compellingly evokes a particular city (Paris) in a historical moment, through the recollections of his idiosyncratic protagonist. Simultaneously illusory and utterly precise, Sleep of Memory reverberates powerfully in the reader's imagination."—Claire Messud, author, most recently, of The Burning Girl