Sleeping With Houdini

Nin Andrews starts from the premise that life on Earth is suffering, and that a large part of daily life and art is a search for an escape from this essential truth. Much of her writing is about the wish for an escape. In her previous collection, The Book of Orgasms, the voices are like those of angels, who look down from above and wonder: what is the problem with the human race? Why are they so troubled?

The prose poems in her new collection, Sleeping with Houdini, are more personal. Andrews begins by speaking as a little girl who wishes she could vanish at will or become invisible to the outer world, just as Houdini did. As she grows up, so does her imagination. Houdini becomes a personal icon of a magical being, a muse, and ultimate lover, or that which one can long for but never possess or become. Sleeping with Houdini is a kind of "inscape" of a girl's life, an inside look at her fantasies and fears, her wishes and dreams, a collection in which Houdini becomes a metaphor for her longing.


"Though her prose poems read as plausible narrative, Andrews fluently infiltrates the logical with the surreal. Her unique and playful vision presents a world off-kilter and disjointed where the reader strangely feels right at home."

–Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics