Title page from Vivien Shotwell’s “Methods of Rest”
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Esopus 7 (Fall 2006)
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New Voices: “Methods of Rest”
By Vivien Shotwell
“Listening to the radio—there has been a plane crash—I get dressed, and softly groan with weariness. Sarah Marie, my pretty, well-adjusted roommate, is in the shower, and though I am greasy and itchy I do not feel like waiting for her to be done. I would have to talk to her, and she would have to ask me how I slept....”
The latest installment in our series of fiction by previously unpublished authors presents the layered, evocative story of a young woman whose relentless insomnia mirrors her deeper personal struggles.
“Methods of Rest” was Vivien Shotwell’s first published work. She is also the author of the forthcoming novel Vienna Nocturne (Ballantine, January 2104). Shotwell is a graduate of Williams College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, as well as a classically trained opera singer.