First off, thank you for your wonderful messages, emails and reviews of The Stranger. I love hearing from you and I’m thrilled that you’ve enjoyed the novel. A few of you wrote to ask about the twist at the beginning of The Stranger. I thought the answers would make for an interesting blog post. But–SPOILER ALERT–If you haven’t read The Stranger and you’d like to be surprised upfront, stop right now and don’t read this blog.
On the other hand, if you’ve already read The Stranger, I’m happy to share. Now, folks, here’s my disclaimer upfront: I write fiction, which means that my characters are not based on any one real person and my stories are total and complete figments of my imagination. That’s absolutely true for The Stranger. But it doesn’t mean that everyday life doesn’t influence what I write. The truth is that my first inspiration for making the heroine of The Stranger, Summer Silva, a sleepwalker came from…Are you ready for this? Family lore.
My mother, the greatest storyteller in our family, often talks about her great-aunt Julita, who was a severe parasomniac. Apparently, the woman regularly attempted to fly in her sleep and was often found perched on high ledges and dangerous places. If this reminds you a certain scene in The Stranger, you might be onto something. Despite her sleeping disorder, Julita lived a long and happy life under the nocturnal supervision of the love of her life, great-uncle Jose who kept a ladder nearby. But her antics fired my imagination. If you have a legendary sleepwalker in your family, Summer’s story? Totally plausible.
And then, as I began to research the basics for The Stranger, I came across headlines like these:
Sleepwalking Woman had sex with Strangers
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6540-sleepwalking-woman-had-sex-with-strangers/
and
http://www.cracked.com/article/145_the-7-most-insane-things-people-have-done-while-sleepwalking/
I was totally intrigued.
I moved away from headlines and began to research the scientific literature. There’s lots of information about sleepwalkers working, eating, driving and having sex in their sleep. There are also many attempts at scientifically explaining the rare condition, all of which I found fascinating. I won’t bore you with the long list of sources and references I used to research themes like sleepwalking, parasomnia, somnambulism, sleeping disorders, sleep sex and other related conditions, but I think it’s pretty cool that every sleepwalking scene in The Stranger is based on documented cases. Summer Silva is not alone in this.
It all goes to show that reality and fiction sometimes piggy back on each other. 
A.
PS: For those of you who wrote to tell me how interested you were in the subject, I’m including a few general links that can serve as jumping off points to learn more about Summer’s condition and the sort of behaviors that it can cause.
Sleep Sex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_sex
What is sexsomnia?
http://www.everydayhealth.com/sleep/what-is-sexsomnia.aspx
SLEEP: Sex While Sleeping Is Real, and May Be No Joke
http://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/sleepdisorders/3568?np=1&xid=ob_pcp
Sleep-related Eating Disorders
Sleep-related Eating Disorders
Sleep Sex
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/sleep-sex-unromantic-even-dangerous?page=2
Mathematician solves problem while sleepwalking
https://denisegaskins.com/2008/10/20/math-history-agnesi-euler-china/