The Literary Insomniac

Cheney, a literary agent (and inveterate insomniac), and Hubbert, a book editor, have hit upon a built-in safety feature in their anthology for the sleep-deprived. The best pieces of the 23 in the collection offer imaginative riffs on sleeplessness and its consequence: Ben Cheever's ""The Door of Perception,"" for example, explores the intimate relationship between literary creativity and the wee small hours of the morning, which he calls ""the sweet spot of the day, a time when a writer is much more apt to meet his muse."" Another high point, George Dawes Green's ""The Chains of Circadia,"" rails against the ""bondage of 24,"" urging readers to ""smash the clocks and spit on their tyrannical grinding innards"" and sleep and wake according to their own internal rhythms instead (in the author's case, a 26-hour day). Other entries are weak; a few seem to be included simply because the world ""sleep"" or ""night"" appears in the title. Pieces like Tom Beller's ""Music at Night,"" a keenly observed but ultimately monotonous evocation of Manhattan after dark, become so lulling in their careful cool they might put even inveterate insomniacs to sleep. But herein lies the editors' safety net: sleep is exactly what readers of this uneven anthology are probably looking for. (Dec.)