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Intro
The unnamed narrator explains that she began her “hibernation” project in mid-June, when she was 26 years old. She tries to be awake as little as possible. When she can’t sleep, she mostly watches movies. She leaves her apartment to get coffee at the nearby bodega when she can’t sleep. She sees her psychiatrist, Dr. Tuttle, to get more prescriptions for the downers she needs to stay asleep, and she goes to the Rite Aid to get the prescriptions filled. As she embarks on her hibernation project, she intersperses her narration with reflections about her unhappy past.
Other than that, the narrator’s only social interaction is with Reva, her only friend, who occasionally drops by the narrator’s Manhattan apartment unannounced with a bottle of wine. Reva complains about her weight, her job, her ongoing affair with her boss Ken, and her mother, who is dying of cancer. The narrator dislikes Reva and her company. Reva worries about the narrator’s concerning behavior—her prescription drug use, her smoking, and her incessant sleeping—but the narrator ignores her concern. During one of Reva’s visits, the narrator tries to tell Reva they shouldn’t be friends anymore, and Reva storms out in a huff. She calls back less than an hour later to tell the narrator that she has forgiven her.
The narrator explains that she started seeing Dr. Tuttle in January of 2000. Dr. Tuttle is an eccentric woman who apparently believes all the narrator’s lies about not being able to sleep and writes her prescriptions for all kinds of drugs.
The narrator also gives some background about her nonexistent love life. She met Trevor, a much older banker, when she was 18, and he has been her only boyfriend. She prefers his sadistic arrogance to the young hipster boys she went to college with. She attended Columbia University and graduated with a degree in Art History.
When she begins her hibernation project, the narrator is working at Ducat, a trendy Chelsea art gallery. Ducat’s star artist is Ping Xi. The narrator’s boss, Natasha, considers Ping Xi “a good investment” because his shocking, masculine artwork is very on trend at the moment. Currently, Ping Xi is working with taxidermied dogs. It’s rumored that Ping Xi raises the dogs from puppies and euthanizes them once they reach his preferred dimensions. Natasha is encouraged by the uproar this rumor will cause—she thinks it will attract lots of attention to the gallery. The narrator, on the other hand, finds Ping Xi’s art stupid, superficial, and cruel. Eventually, Natasha fires her for messing up a major assignment and sleeping on the job.
The narrator was very wealthy growing up—her mother came from a family of southern WASPs who made their fortune in the oil and logging industries. The narrator’s father, who died of cancer while she was in college, was a professor. Her mother died not long after, of suicide. Both parents were very cold and emotionally unavailable throughout the narrator’s adolescence, and her mother abused alcohol and prescription medications.
After leaving Ducat, the narrator lies to Dr. Tuttle about freelancing in Chicago in order to decrease their weekly visits to monthly visits. Dr. Tuttle accepts the lie and continues to prescribe the narrator various sedatives.
The narrator remembers her unhappy school days. Her conventional beauty earned her many admirers but few genuine friends. She didn’t date anyone until she met Trevor. After returning to college from her mother’s funeral, nobody in her sorority offered her any support—Reva, who was in her French class, was the only person who seemed interested in talking about her death and grief. Even though the narrator finds Reva’s optimistic perspective on death annoying, she’s grateful for someone to talk to.
In November, the narrator starts to encounter some problems in her hibernation project. Before, she’d been able to sleep without interruption. Now, she finds herself going to the bodega in her sleep or rearranging the furniture in her apartment. She starts sending strangers on the internet explicit photos of herself. She also doesn’t remember doing these things. Reva starts visiting less and less, seeming to accept the narrator’s hibernation project.
The narrator doesn’t tell Dr. Tuttle about her increasingly frequent blackouts, fearing the doctor will stop writing her prescriptions. Instead, Dr. Tuttle gives the narrator a sample bottle of a new drug, Infermiterol, and this only worsens the narrator’s blackouts. Around this time, the narrator also starts thinking about Trevor a lot. She remembers her last interaction with him, which was on New Year’s Eve, 2000. It was unpleasant, but she continues to pine for him, nonetheless.
Around Christmas, Reva comes by, her face puffy, and announces that her mother has died. She breaks down. The narrator struggles to comfort her and finds her emotions annoying. Later, the narrator emerges from another blackout to find herself on a train from Manhattan to Long Island. She’s wearing an unfamiliar white fur coat and apparently headed to Reva’s mother’s funeral. The narrator reluctantly spends time with Reva at her childhood home, doing her best to suppress memories of her own dead mother, and stands by Reva’s side at the funeral. After, Reva accompanies the narrator back to the city.
The narrator emerges from another blackout to find Reva gone. She is still wearing her fur coat but has a stamp on her hand from a trendy club, Dawn’s Early. She spots polaroid photos around her apartment that suggest she was out with Ping Xi and other party people.
Later, unable to sleep, the narrator repeatedly calls Trevor, who wants nothing to do with her. Things get worse when her VCR breaks, leaving her unable to watch movies. Reva comes by not long after. Crying, she announces that her relationship with Ken is over: after discovering that she was pregnant (which is news to the narrator, too), he ended the affair and got her transferred to an office at the World Trade Center.
After Reva leaves, the narrator calls Trevor again, this time threatening to kill herself if he doesn’t come over to have sex with her. Trevor acquiesces, and then the narrator blacks out again, waking up later with his penis in her mouth. He leaves immediately after finishing and says he won’t be back. Sometime later, the narrator sees a note at her apartment from Ping Xi: “To my muse. Call me and we’ll get started.”
Reva comes by later to announce that she has scheduled an abortion. She anguishes over whether it’s the right thing to do. Not long after, the narrator blacks out. When she comes to, she finds that all her pills are gone. Furious, she heads to Reva’s apartment to find her stolen pills. Reva is nowhere in sight, but the narrator finds her pills in the medicine cabinet. Just then, the narrator has a revelation. She takes the bottle of Infermiterol and leaves the other pills behind. Then she puts her plan into action.
The narrator calls Dr. Tuttle to schedule their last appointment. She also contacts a locksmith. Later, she gives away all her clothes—materialistic Reva is all too eager to inherit pieces from the narrator’s designer wardrobe. She also gets rid of all her furniture. All she keeps are some pajamas, towels, her mattress and bedding, a table, and a chair. She vaguely tells Reva she is going on a trip, which Reva interprets to mean she’s entering rehab.
The narrator works out an arrangement with Ping Xi: he will bring her food once a week, along with anything else she requests. In exchange, she will let him feature her in his latest art project, observing and documenting her as she sleeps for the final six months of her hibernation. Under this arrangement, she won’t have to leave the house. The narrator will take an Infermiterol tablet once every three days, guaranteeing that she is either sleeping or blacked out for the remainder of her hibernation. She has had the locksmith install a deadbolt that locks from the outside so that she cannot physically leave her apartment. She will only ever stay awake long enough to shower, eat, and switch out her laundry.
This goes on until June 1, one year since the narrator began her hibernation. Little by little, she begins to rejoin the outside world. One day, the narrator goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has a quasi-epitome about life, beauty, and meaning while looking at a still-life painting. She also reaches out to Reva, having finally realized how much she means to her, but by this point it’s clear that Reva no longer has much interest in being friends. On September 11, the narrator buys a new VCR so that she can record the live news coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Reva, she will later learn, died in the attacks. Anytime the narrator needs to feel “courage,” or if she’s simply bored, she replays footage of a woman who looks remarkably like Reva falling out of one of the Twin Towers. She is struck by how “beautiful” and “wide awake” the woman appears.
