As in Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask, the form is perfectly suited to the story: of a sleep-deprived woman unravelling as she’s haunted by her past
One of the most striking aspects of Sharon Kernot’s verse novel Night Swimming is its portrayal of insomnia, in both its physical strain and its maddening psychological effects.
January Clare Colson, Kernot’s protagonist, has suffered bouts of insomnia alongside intense parasomnias – sleep paralysis, sleepwalking, hallucinatory nightmares – since the death of her best friend, Julie, at the age of 16, and she survives largely by self-medicating with red wine and sleeping pills.