Sleeping rough

The night has a thousand eyes

From a young age – ten perhaps – the author Dan Richards has had a strained relationship with night-time. Grappling with insomnia, he would take ‘the homeopathic approach to [his] waking nightmares’, rereading Moominland Midwinter despite its existential terrors. Even now, he writes, he finds it easier to sleep when he is not at home. This has, for better or worse, given him time to think – and lots to think about – while not much else was going on. In the avowed spirit of Auden/Britten’s Night Mail, Richards now invites us to follow him across ‘an usual threshold at an unusual hour’, exploring nocturnal life on the streets of