Sleeping Children
A Novel
by Anthony Passeron
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Pub Date Apr 29 2025 | Archive Date May 29 2025
Description
An intimate, captivating first novel that tells the story of a family in southern France whose lives are intertwined with the history of the AIDS crisis—and with the forgotten French doctors who are among the first to detect the virus.
It’s 1981. As a wave of mysterious infections sweeps across the United States, a doctor in Paris encounters something unexpected: a case of a disease long thought to have been eradicated. It matches what is happening across the Atlantic—and thus begins a race to make sense of a deadly virus, one that will define a generation.
Miles away, in rural France, Anthony Passeron’s family is dealing with a crisis of their own. Their small village is gripped by another epidemic: heroin addiction. Anthony’s uncle Désiré, once the pride of the family, has become one of the “sleeping children.” Often found unconscious on street corners, he is now a stranger to his family. As Désiré’s life descends into chaos, the thunder of the AIDS crisis grows closer. These two stories—one intimate, one global—are about to collide.
Anthony Passeron’s moving novel is also an eye-opening story about shame and the slow poisoning that secrets can inflict on a family. Exploring the stories of the heroic few who fought not only for a cure but for justice for an abandoned community, Sleeping Children is a radical vision of a history reshaped, retold, and remembered.
A Note From the Publisher
Anthony Passeron was born in Nice in 1983. He teaches French literature and Humanities in a secondary school. Sleeping Children is his first novel. He is already working on his next novel.
Advance Praise
★ “In Passeron’s beautiful and sorrowful debut autofiction, he attempts to end his family’s silence over a relative’s death from AIDS decades earlier. Passeron grew up rarely hearing the name of his father’s brother Désiré, who died a few years after Passeron was born. Now, after his paternal grandparents have died, he seeks to recover Désiré’s story . . . A searing testament to how the dead live on in their loved ones’ memory.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780374612269 |
| PRICE | $27.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 208 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Jessica S, Reviewer
What an insightful, compassionate, and heartbreaking read. This book concurrently follows the work of French medical researchers to understand and identify HIV/AIDS and the experience of a family affected by AIDS. While it is marketed as a novel, I would more so say it alternates between being a nonfiction book and a personal narrative. Once I understood this, I was better able to engage with the sections following French researchers. As I continued to read, I found that I quite liked the juxtaposition between the emotional personal story and the factual history of the scientific discovery. I appreciated the author’s discussion of the politics of the scientific community and the way that this affected and hampered HIV/AIDS research. Can’t overstate that enough.
The author’s grandmother was a very interesting character in this piece—she was presented as flawed, but the depiction felt so real, resonant, and precisely captured a type of person that cannot face up to their reality. The personal narrative gave a personal grounding to patients and the urgency the researchers faced.
The writing/translation in the later chapters was lovely. This book was serious and sad without being melodramatic. As someone born in the early 90s, I never realized how very close this epidemic was to time in which I lived. It can feel as if it is part of a distant past, but it is far from that. So glad I read this.
Alissa L, Bookseller
Anthony Passeron’s Sleeping Children is an absolutely phenomenal book that details the AIDS crisis from its emergence in the early 1980’s to its presence in the 21st century. The story of this tragedy is told in two dual narratives- that of a family in rural France devastated by the disease, and that of the teams of scientists, researchers and virologists who worked to identify and treat the disease, creating a compelling portrait of the personal and wide-spread effects of AIDS.
The chapters are short, moving and beautifully written. Frank Wynne has done an excellent job translating. The historical and medical sections of the book are incredibly well researched, and provide an engaging, in-depth look at the history of AIDS in the research sector, and of the people and institutes, failures and successes, and tensions and collaborations involved to bring our understanding of HIV and AIDS to where it is now.
This profound novel is already one of my favourite reads of the year, and I will be highly recommending this book.
Thank you so much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Charles L, Reviewer
Thank you to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and Anthony Passeron for allowing me to read this gutwrenching and important before its publication date in exchange for an honest review.
I genuinely think this might be the best book I have read this year. I found myself needing to read faster and faster. I finished this book in two sittings, I just could not put it down. It moved me in a way that is currently unspeakable.
As a queer man, I have a level of familiarity with the AIDS crisis and its impact on my community, the reason why many queer people became queer elders. However, Sleeping Children takes an intense and personal dive into the author's family's experience with AIDS after his uncle was diagnosed due to his heroin addiction.
The book narratively follows two stories, the author's family's experience with AIDS and several French scientists as they try and uncover what is causing the epidemic. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves any form of nonfiction, this book is for lovers of biographies and scientific history.
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