Critical Praise

"Matthew Sharpe's The Sleeping Father is two novels in one-an imploding-family masterpiece every bit as heart-piercing as The Corrections, and a stylistically thrilling inquiry into the weight of words… It's resplendent with aching absurdities, word salads, inspired semicolon deployment, golden-eared teenage monologues. It's the best thing I hope to read all year-and if it isn't, this will be a very good year indeed... The Sleeping Father is genuine sui generis genius comic family novel writing."

——Village Voice

"[F]resh, funny, quirky"

——Ann Tyler (in a New York Times interview)

"Tragic and madcap"

——Publishers Weekly

"Sharpe's arch tone is charmingly at odds with the sprawling, inclusive structure of ''The Sleeping Father.'' His raised-eyebrow formality suggests a host surveying unwanted guests, yet he keeps waving more and more characters in the front door. He's a rare find: an ironist who actually seems to like other people."

——New York Times Book Review (included as an "And Bear In Mind" for four weeks)