Writer Describes His Life with ‘Sleep Demons’

Hayes, Bill. Sleep Demons: An Insomniac’s Memoir. New  York, NY: Pocket Books, 2001. 355 pp.

Do I want to read a book written by a homosexual man? That’s what I first thought upon checking out this book from the library. I read the author’s bio and it said that Bill Hayes “lives in San Francisco with his partner, Steve.”

Since memoirs written by insomniacs about insomnia are so scarce, I decided to read the first three chapters and then make my decision. Well, Hayes writes with such skill and fluidity that I decided to read the whole book after reading only the first chapter. Sleep Demons was a “national best-seller,” though I was unable to find where it peaked on The New York Times best-seller list, or for that matter, if it even made The Times list.

Sleep Demons, in a way, was a disappointment. I was expecting to, or at least hoping to, read a story strictly about his insomnia and how he cured it, if he did in fact cure it. I didn’t get that. What I got instead was a history lesson, a lesson filled with comprehensive, in-depth research about insomnia and about twentieth-century sleep researchers, Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky and nineteenth-century sleep researcher, Robert McNish. In this sense, then, I wasn’t disappointed. To say that I learned little or nothing from this book would be a lie. This part of American history was new to me, and I think it would be to many other insomniacs as well.

I felt that Hayes’ book was more of an autobiography than a memoir, not that there’s anything wrong with autobiography. It started with his childhood and went to his present life, which was in 2001 at the time of writing. He described his life from his earliest memories of leaving Minneapolis, Minnesota, by airplane when his family moved to Spokane, Washington, where his father bought a Coca-Cola bottling franchise. Spokane was where he would live the remainder of his childhood and teen years.

In Part One: Wakefulness, he discusses his family of origin and its idiosyncrasies. Hayes was the sixth of six children and the only son. He goes into detail about his relationship with his father, a little less with his mother, and virtually nothing with his sisters. His staunch Catholic upbringing also played a role in his young life, though in his adult life his faith wavered considerably, nearly non-existent.

In Part Two: Sleep and Its Derangements, he covered several topics, two of which were sleepwalking and sleeptalking and his experience with them. Although these two chapters contained the same high level of research and writing skill as the rest of the book, they were the only chapters that I found boring and difficult to get through, requiring considerable tenacity on my part. Once I made it through those barrier chapters, I had no trouble reading to the last page.

In the chapter “Arousals,” Hayes tells of his teenage encounters of being approached by adult men, once on an airplane and once on a beach in Mexico. This chapter made brief mention of insomnia but contained a major description of each encounter. Nothing became of either incident. I saw no need for this chapter even being included in the canon. It did little to nothing in forwarding his story of life with insomnia, only his sexual desire for men.

His homosexual life is a more dominant theme throughout the book than his insomnia is. The reader learns about two of his boyfriends: Nick and Steve. Nick gets first mention; Steve, however, gets much more attention, especially in the last one-third of the book.

In Part Three: Night Sweats, he discusses dream recall, hypnotics, fevers, and Fatal Familial Insomnia. He also goes into detail about his relationship with Steve.

Hayes discusses Steve’s full-blown AIDS diagnosis, prognosis, and later on, a partial recovery, or at least a slight improvement in day-to-day life. What do gay men think will happen to them when they engage in a homosexual lifestyle? If you play with fire long enough, you’ll eventually get burned.

Really, the only problems I had with the book was reading what he wrote about “kissing Steve on the lips” and of having what gay men consider to be sexual intercourse. As a heterosexual male, picturing those thoughts in my mind nauseated me. I don’t understand how a man can sexually stimulate another man. If Hayes’ writing had been anything less than stellar, I wouldn’t have read beyond chapter three. In reality, I probably wouldn’t have read any of it.

His lifestyle notwithstanding, I did enjoy the book if for no other reason than the historical significance and the depth of research. I like to think of myself as a writer, but compared with Hayes I’m not. His literary expertise is my literary dream.

Although I didn’t get from the book what I had initially wanted from it, I did acquire knowledge about insomnia, sleep research, and the male homosexual lifestyle. If you’re one who enjoys reading crisp, clear, picturesque nonfiction writing, and if male homosexuality doesn’t offend you, then I would recommend reading this book. Although the book is nine years old, its contents remain valid. Insomnia doesn’t change much over the course of a few years, if it changes at all.

(c) 2010 by Mike Hooker

My next book for review is Insomniac by Gayle Greene. Like Sleep Demons, Insomniac is a memoir supported with scientific investigation. The author claims to be a fifty-year insomniac, so she has twenty years on me.

Her book currently has 33 reviews on Amazon with a four-and-a-half-star rating. I’ve read none of those reviews, but the book is obviously well-liked. Look for my review by the end of April.