Book: Sleep Has No Master by Jon Konrath

categories: Book, Absurdist, Humor, WTF, Surreal, Experimental, Bizarro

Jon Konrath

about this book: A long bout of insomnia inspired this book, the kind of sleeplessness that causes you to question what is really a dream state and what is reality. This is a collection of flash fiction and short stories that flow through this framework, giving the reader the uncertainty if they're reading about the narrator's real life or surreal nightmares.

I'm fascinated by absurdist writing, and wanted to come up with these short bursts of bizarre humor and frame them in some way other than a traditional linear narrative, but didn't want it to be a completely unreadable experimental work only intriguing to academics. My goal was to create novel-in-parts that was like a printed version of a sketch comedy show like Monty Python's Flying Circus or Mr. Show, something hilarious and easily accessible.

This book is the third in a collection, following 2011's Fistful of Pizza and 2012's The Earworm Inception. It's also closely related to Rumored to Exist, my first experiment in nonlinear storytelling from 2002.