pstrongThe harrowing story of a womans twenty-year quest to escape the personal damage caused by the tedium and terror of nights spent dreading sleep (emBooklist/em)./strong/ppemI came to in the middle of it, like waking inside a horror movie, silent scream and all. Eyes wide open. I was standing at an open window, staring at the dizzying curve of Riverside Drive, five floors below. Id stopped, somehow, poised, about to jump./em/ppGrowing up a good girl in an Irish-American family full of drinkers and terrible sleepers, Kathleen Frazier was twelve when her seemingly innocent sleepwalking turned dangerous. By day she was a popular A student, the star of her high school musical. At night, she both longed for and dreaded sleep./ppFrazier moved to Manhattan in the 1980s, hoping for a life in the theater but getting a run of sleepwalking performances instead. Efforts to abate her malady with drinking failed miserably. She became promiscuous, looking for nighttime companionship. Could a bed partner save her from flinging herself down a flight of stairs or out an open window? Exhaustion stalked her, and both rest and love were seemingly out of reach./ppThis is the journey Frazier illuminates in her intimate memoir, winner of the Independent Publishers Award for Best First Book Nonfiction . While highlighting her quest to beat her sleep terrors and insomnia, this is ultimately a story of health, hope, and redemption./ppA terrifying, compelling, and fascinating tale that takes us deep into the horrors of sleep walking and then reveals to us how the author managed to end a twenty-year nightmare. Ellen Burstyn, award-winning actress, writer, teacher/p