ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT

ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT
AND OTHER STORIES
Lynne Sharon Schwartz
New York: Harper & Row, 1984
226 pages, paperback, $5.95
ISBN 0-06-091297-9

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

Alexander Smith has not been sleeping well. Having fallen asleep again while reading in bed, Alexander awakens at 2:47 a.m. The last two numbers, he notes, are his age, an unwelcome reminder that he is getting older. An architect, he lost a contract today to a younger rival. He feels stranded and forlorn.

The protagonist of Acquainted With The Night, the title story in Lynne Sharon Schwartz's 1984 short story collection, Alexander is a classic worry-ridden insomniac. Tonight he has one more problem: a mote in his eye, another sign, he believes, of increasing fraility and impending age.

As the floater darts across his visual field, Alexander's attention careens from one dire event to another. He knows he behaved badly at work today, shouting at his staff. Now he is being punished. He doesn't deserve this fate, he tells himself. He's a pretty good guy, an ordinary man. He hasn't done many bad things in his life, not really. But those bad things haunt him tonight.

Eighteen years ago, he accepted a bribe at work. He neglected his elderly parents. In foul temper, he once beat his child; he thinks she probably doesn't remember. He was unfaithful to his wife, Linda. She doesn't know about the one- night stands, he's sure of that, but then there was the art historian with whom he was madly in love for a year..... Linda had been devastated by that.

Sleep eludes him. The mote persists. The night wears on. Alexander sees his inability to sleep as a living death. Indeed, he comes to view death as imminent, reminding us that in ancient Greek mythology, Hypnos, sleep, was the twin brother of Thanatos, death. Alexander's story also resonates with Robert Frost's poem, from which its title comes: "I have walked out in rain--and back in rain.... I have looked down the saddest city lane."

Day breaks, flooding the room with light, and washing away his fears. The mote disappears. At last, Alexander sleeps. What will he remember in the morning? Will he strive to be kinder to his staff, more considerate at home? Will he see the link between his days and his nights? Or will beasts lurk in Alexander's bedroom again tonight?