The Sleeping Father is a novel by Matthew Sharpe first published in 2003 about an average middle-class American family struck by betrayal, separation, and illness.
[1] Wisecracking his way through life until he has eventually reached adulthood, 17-year-old Chris Schwartz has provoked comparison with Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye.
Faced with the dual challenge of having to raise two teenage kids while remaining successful in his demanding job as a publicist and speech writer, Bernard Schwartz more and more relies on medication to cope with everyday life.
Still a virgin, he fantasizes about having sex with Lisa Danmeyer, Bernard's neurologist and actually has his first sexual encounter ever at his father's rehab centre with a sexy speech pathologist who performs fellatio on him.
The Sleeping Father also discusses the issues of racism (Francis Dial is African American), crime, and violence against women (at a battered wives' shelter, Cathy meets a woman whose husband is a violent criminal who, towards the end of the novel, robs the Schwartzes at gunpoint).