Until They Sleep by Nadia Staikos | The Miramichi Reader

In a big family in a Greek village, Frona is doing her best. Her best to be a helpful daughter, a good sister, and a pure person. Unfortunately, this last one is the most challenging: overcome with desire as she grows into a young woman. Trapped in a conservative, religious society, Frona has no one to ask if her desire for men is normal. If her lust is proper – and she’s convinced it will be the thing that damns her. Even after she marries Kimon and realizes their mutual attraction and love, Frona is convinced she’s shameful. But if she can continue to work on herself, avoid temptation and remain pure, there’s probably hope for her. This guidepost keeps her going: from raising her own children, to concealing a baby and leaving it for her childless neighbours and friends, to protecting the village with her daughter when soldiers set upon them.

But if she can continue to work on herself, avoid temptation and remain pure, there’s probably hope for her.

I could genuinely spend this whole review simply outlining the plot of Until They Sleep, because Nadia Staikos follows a family for decades. Their choices and secrets wind around a fantastical tale of love and support, in unlikely garb. It deals with the rigidity of gender roles and religious understandings of purity, and the boxes people jam themselves into to try and live the lives they think they’re supposed to have – and what it might look like when someone else pursues the life that they want to have instead.

Where this novel shines the most, however, is in the portrayal of Frona’s struggle to be pure and the contrast it holds against Galena and Rouvin, the next generation, who reject the structures that Frona accepted so readily, and the world doesn’t fall apart. Galena and Rouvin live the way they want to, together and apart, and they centre their own happiness above pleasing the village. This is so tenderly and beautifully handled.

It deals with the rigidity of gender roles and religious understandings of purity, and the boxes people jam themselves into to try and live the lives they think they’re supposed to have – and what it might look like when someone else pursues the life that they want to have instead.

On one level, this is a family saga. On another, it’s a ghost story. It’s a fairy tale. And it’s a deep reflection on what we do with the expectations that rear us. I was profoundly touched by Frona, her friend Ligia, her daughter Galena, and Ligia’s son Rouvin, the primary viewpoints of the book. They are so complicated and messy and brave. Staikos’ storytelling is so gripping that I read this much faster than I anticipated, and I’ve been thinking about these characters ever since (and not just because I had to write this review). Until They Sleep is a great novel, transcending genre, and I hope it gets the attention it deserves. I was spellbound from start to finish.

Nadia Staikos (she/they) lives in Toronto with her two children. Their work has previously appeared in Barrelhouse, Poets & Writers, Lost Balloon, Montréal Writes, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions. She is former Prose Editor at Chestnut Review and works for United for Literacy, a national literacy charity.

Publisher: Guernica Editions (October 1, 2025)
Paperback 8″ x 5″ | 250 pages
ISBN: 9781771839839

Alison Manley

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Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.