There is a certain unreality about his book. Beginning with a dream like refrain that seems to mimic the drift into deep sleep, the body of the book is more like glimpses than watching a traditional narrative unfold. As in a dream we see elements that convey the whole story but we are not quite ourselves. This becomes literally true for the main character who’s identity becomes fluid—she does so little to establish who she is at any time that, like a dream, events unfold with a kind of uncontrollable fate or destiny rather than as a result of her actions. There were moments where I fought this feeling at the beginning (probably why I have had lifelong sleeping problems) but the sooner you give yourself over, the more you will enjoy the book. Once this dream is set in motion, Woolrich manages suspense from thin air as if it is seeping from the walls. Every furtive step on a staircase or neighbor glimpsed from a window or tap on the shoulder during a dance feels heavy with portent. More often than not pay-off is deferred increasing the debt of suspense and by the end there are twists, hopes rise and fall and…you find yourself slipping out of the deep sleep you have been in for 200 pages. I had to surreptitiously agree not to wake up to truly enjoy the purgatory like ending of I MARRIED A DEAD MAN but I’m okay with that.