Naked Sleeper

Feckless, nervous, irresolute, often troubled with insomnia, Nona longs for a life of firm purpose, order, and dignity. To do whatever is the work before her, letting nothing distract her, expecting nothing, fearing nothing - the way of the Stoics - this is her ideal. But despite all her stratagems, this ideal constantly eludes her. Life is too unpredictable, her sense of self too fragile, and human and relationships are too tenuous. She muddles along, a victim of her own anxieties and resentments, her behavior often as mystifying to herself as it is to others. Why, though happily married,…