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    Sleepwalk: A Novel
    Sleepwalk: A Novel
    Sleepwalk: A Novel
    Ebook396 pages8 hours

    Sleepwalk: A Novel

    By Dan Chaon

    4/5

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    Sleepwalk is a high speed and darkly comic road trip through a near future America with a big-hearted mercenary, from beloved and acclaimed award-winning novelist Dan Chaon.

    “[Chaon] does madcap well and likes his characters, even the killers—especially the killers.”—The New York Times Book Review

    A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
    An NPR “Book of the Day”
    A USA Today “Must Read”

    Sleepwalk’s hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. A good-natured henchman with a complicated and lonely past and a passion for LSD microdosing, he spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog that has post-traumatic stress and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust.

    Out of the blue, one of Will's many burner phones heralds a call from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations; he’s half certain she’s AI. She needs his help. She’s entrenched in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers, and for Will to continue to have any contact with her increasingly fuzzes the line between the people he is working for and the people he’s running from.

    With his signature blend of haunting emotional realism and fast-paced intrigue, Dan Chaon populates his fractured America with characters who ring all too true. Gazing both back to the past and forward to an inevitable-enough-seeming future, Sleepwalk examines where we’ve been and where we’re going and the connections that bind us, no matter how far we travel to dodge them or how cleverly we hide.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMay 24, 2022
    ISBN9781250175229
    Author

    Dan Chaon

    Dan Chaon is the author of several books, including Ill Will, a national bestseller, named one of the ten best books of 2017 by Publishers Weekly. Other works include the short story collection Stay Awake (2012), a finalist for the Story Prize; the national bestseller Await Your Reply; and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in the Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart Prize Anthologies, and the O. Henry Collection. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction and the Shirley Jackson Award, and he was the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland.

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    Reviews for Sleepwalk

    4/5

    89 ratings20 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Dan Chaon's newest book is set in a near future dystopian America. Will Bear lives entirely off the grid, criss-crossing the country in his RV doing odd jobs for the crime conglomerate he works for. His only friend and companion is his beloved dog.Because he believes himself to be entirely "invisible" he is surprised one day to receive a phone call from a woman named Cammie claiming to be his daughter. He wants to find out is she really is his daughter, and also, how she found him.I'm a Dan Chaon fan, and the book interested me, and kept me reading. While often the events described are surreal, the characters are very real. I also enjoyed the depiction. of a future America that is horrific, and yet entirely plausible and believable. I didn't always fully understand what was going on, but I enjoyed the ride.3 stars
    • 4/5
      Sleepwalk is an oddball, dark, but absolutely appealing tale of bad guys, almost–good guys (the exception being a thoroughly excellent dog), and the sheer work necessary to confront fate when it comes your way. The protagonist, a career mercenary who lives well outside the boundaries of society, never quite has an official name; he calls himself the Barely Blur, a nod to his shifting identities, but averages out along the way to Will—the principle of self-determination being something he grapples with throughout the novel. He’s deeply damaged, and does some terrible things, but he’s the kind of character Chaon writes so well: amiable, a bit befuddled, thoughtful right up to the point where his introspection can take him no further. Will is jogged out of his track as a cog in a dark network when a woman claiming to be his daughter—the result of a series of sperm donations he made for the money as a young man—manages to track him down (wonderful image of a bucket of burner phones suddenly, and horrifyingly to Will, all vibrating). There ensues a bit of a road movie, bit of a shaggy dog tale, bit of a musing on the limits and uses of paranoia in a vaguely dystopic near future (which is not all that far removed from the present day, honestly—lots of surveillance and shadow societies in the mix). But Will is also one of those characters that Chaon writes so well, introspective and slightly bemused, damaged but with a solid core of decency. I don’t know what you’d exactly call this—sympathetic noir?—but I liked it a lot.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book for its compelling strangeness. Most of the plot points in this book are not at all appealing to me but I couldn't turn away. I had no idea where it was headed and even after it veered into dystopian territory and killer robots began to appear, I kept going. Chaon is a fabulous storyteller.
    • 4/5
      This is a road-trip novel set in a near-future (or possibly alternate) America in which society is slowly collapsing but you can still find people willing to pick up a hitchhiker or break your nose for a hundred bucks. Billy travels across America in his RV, the Guiding Star, with his strangely endearing dog, Flip, rescued from a dog-fighting outfit. Billy does odd jobs of a criminal nature for a vague corporate entity, who make use of the fact that in a world where everything about everybody is in the cloud somewhere, Billy technically doesn't exist and is thus invisible. However, he did donate sperm back in the day, which was used to make babies, one of which calls him on his untraceable burner phone and starts the whole convoluted plot rolling. The story is part long-distance chase, part mystery, part techno thriller, part bizarro dystopia, and we bumble through it with affable Billy, as he remembers scenes from his dysfunctional childhood, gradually comes to question everything he just accepted in the past, and starts losing/shedding vital parts of his previous life. While this novel paints a grim picture of the world that's waiting for us just around the corner, it does so with dark humor and a sense of grim optimism.
    • 4/5
      Weird and wacky book about a polite hitman and his maybe daughter.
    • 3/5
      Another little oddity with a lot going for it, but it’s not perfect. I’ll start with what worked for me. First was Billy or Barely Blur as he sometimes calls himself. A man with more names than years to his life, Billy is a road warrior assassin, cleaner, kidnapper, arsonist - whatever awful job his employers need done. With him travels Flip, a rescued pitbull fighting dog (leftover from one of said jobs). They have a nicely appointed RV with homey touches and the name Guiding Star. Besides Flip, Experanza is his only friend. She lives in a model McMansion in a development that never materialized and has been left to rot. He has almost as many burner phones as he does names and microdoses with LSD daily to keep on an even keel. His mysterious past will unfold for you, but only so far. Out of the blue, on one of those many burners, he gets a call from a woman claiming to be his daughter and she uses his earliest of aliases. But how did she know? How did she track him down? And when he muses that she probably knows more about him than he does himself, we are introduced to his mental instability, breakdown and time in a psychiatric hospital - pretty much all of which he doesn’t remember. He’s alarmed, but not unduly and turns to Experanza for advice - “If it were me, I would try to gain her trust and find her location and then you can go there and kill her.” In time we come to understand that Cammie, this daughter, is only one of over 100 children conceived from his sperm donation days when a young junkie, dealer and confessed matricide. Between his mental lapses, life of crime, shady employers and intrusive future tech, it’s a pretty bleak landscape we tread and a decent mystery to keep us going. He keeps talking to Cammie when she calls (it’s only one way), she’s got his mother’s laugh and drops enough information about him and his 167 children to keep him hooked. But then he gets orders to find and kill her. She’s a threat to…something. We’re not sure what and neither is he. But the fact that she’s a run-away adoptee and has cut off her own foot to remove embedded trackers, it’s serious. Just who is Tim Ribbons and the Value Standard Corporation? Is he really Billy’s legal guardian? How about the L. Ron Hubbardesque Brayden Kurch and his best selling book Transhumanist Séance? How does he relate to Harland Jengling and the Temple of the True Science? Didn’t his mother once mention going to a rich man’s charitable foundation and then coming away pregnant? How about Patches St. Germain, old roommate, fellow petty criminal, and present day doctor? Why does he live in a walled compound with a chimpanzee named Ward? Is Cammie one or many?In the end you’ll have a lot of action and most of those questions answered, but the solution is still somewhat opaque and I wanted a bit more clarity in the connections. The writing is top notch if a bit jargony in terms of the near-future setting of the book. Nothing too difficult to figure out though. On page 195 Billy thinks “The idea gives me the fantods.” - Thanks for reminding me of that word, Dan. Sweet. Oh and those things poking up by the cypresses aren’t roots, they’re knees!
    • 4/5
      There's a moment, towards the end of Dan Chaon's dystopian novel, where the central premise for a lot of the story is revealed to be a scam and I realized that I was just along for the ride. Billy, or whatever you want to call him, is a man with many aliases. He makes his living driving around North America in a mobile home delivering people, sometimes babies, and objects of various kinds. His selling point is that he is unknown to authorities, his identity isn't in a single database. Oh, except he donated sperm when he was a lot younger, just to earn a few extra bucks. And now that one thing is causing him a lot of problems. This novel is set in a near future that is similar to our own and also very different. It's where corporations call the shots, drones masquerade as Pokémon characters and civilization is collapsing. Billy isn't a good guy. He's a large middle-aged white guy doing whatever his employers ask him to and sometimes those things are very bad. He's also oddly likable and occasionally does the right thing, often against his own self-interest, like rescuing a pit bull from a dog fighting ring. As the novel progresses, it becomes weirder and weirder, yet somehow I was more and more invested in this guy and his faithful dog, just trying to figure things out before something bad happens.
    • 4/5
      Sleepwalk is a delightful, mystifying, weird, and wonderful novel. Chaon creates a world, closely adjacent to ours, full of flu pandemics, militias, massacres, assassinations, protests, genetic engineering, dangerous drones, dollar stores, pay phones, and truck stops. There were times when I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but I was quite happy to go along with it. Given the overall level of violence and danger, the voice of the novel is warm and engaging. The main character’s desire to end his isolation with a relationship built on trust is moving and compelling, and Flip is the best dog ever.
    • 4/5
      Dan Chaon's new novel is set in a near-future America where things are falling apart -- even more than they already are, that is -- and violence seems to be casual and commonplace. Our protagonist, Will, a guy with a weird and difficult past, travels around running errands for an organization he's in debt to, from disturbing deliveries to bloody assassinations. Despite this, he doesn't like to think of himself as a bad guy, and damned if he doesn't almost get you to believe it. Then one day Will is contacted by someone who claims to have a mysterious personal connection to him, and things get really complicated.Not that "complicated" begins to describe it. The plot of this one is just... bizarre. Bizarre, and ridiculous. And despite the fact that everything does kind of get explained, it somehow still feels, by the end, as if nothing's really been explained at all. Honestly, the whole thing feels like the stuff of some sort of psychotic delusion (and it's probably not insignificant that Will does, in fact, seem to have a history of psychosis). It seems like it shouldn't, but Chaon does somehow make the whole thing work, on the whole. His main character is just such a great combination of strange and scary and sad and funny and charming that it's impossible not to enjoy taking a ride inside his head. Combined with Chaon's breezy writing style and the way he gives us intriguing, darkly comic little glimpses of this messed-up future world and Will's equally messed-up past, it makes the whole novel a lot more fun than it seems like it ought to be.
    • 3/5
      A strange book. The main character is a mercenary on the run. It takes place in America in the not too distant future. Will is contacted by a woman (?) claiming to be his daughter through sperm donation. As he travels he reviews his life events and tries to develop a relationship with the girl. As they are both on the run, perhaps they are moving to a future together.
    • 4/5
      A Dan Chaon book is like life: you never know what you're going to get. The man sure can turn a phrase; I was absolutely goddamn delighted by the language in this novel. Sure, the story sucked me in, but what's happening seems secondary to the voice. I want to re-read with a pencil and underline, underline, underline.
    • 4/5
      This is a bizarre yet very readable book. At first I thought that the drones and militias mentioned in the story were a figment of the the main character's paranoia, but later realized that they were real and the story is set in the (not too distant) future.I love the protagonist! Billy is a man with many names (and burner phones to match). He lives off the grid, drives around in his van with his rescued pitbull and does jobs for a variety of criminals. Dan Chaon was able to create a very likeable character despite the fact that Billy sometimes murders people (like his own mother!) or transports stolen babies. The real action in the story begins when Billy is contacted by an unknown daughter, the result of a sperm donation twenty years in the past. Billy's character really made me smile. He did the jobs he was required to do, but without malice. He seemed to like his victims, but was able to somewhat detach his own actions from their futures. He often contemplated what life would be like "in another life." He loved the idea of having a daughter and risked everything to try and help her.I enjoyed this book!
    • 5/5
      SLEEPWALK is set only a few years from the present day. But America is on the precipice of self-destruction and the day of reckoning for mankind is rapidly approaching. Nearly all governmental institutions have failed, climate change has totally mucked up the weather and the environment, and special interest militias are ruthlessly running roughshod over a poisoned landscape that was once the shining city on the hill and a beacon of hope for the entire world. Rolling down a highway in this bleak, but still recognizable panorama, in a camper, he calls Guiding Star with his rescued pit bull, Flip, at his side is our protagonist. Unavoidably, my mind starts substituting the Guiding Star for a camper called Rocinante and Flip for a dog named Charley, but SLEEPWALK'S protagonist is no John Steinbeck, but as a fixer for hire he travels with Flip in search of what is left of America. He is, by his own admission, an unattractive man, of large stature with long hair normally braided or in a ponytail. He has a multitude of names, most commonly a variant of Will Bear. He is a dreamy and affable henchman, carrying out various ordered tasks like transporting prisoners, delivering packages, planting explosives, and killing people. He has lived off the grid for his entire life.Will is a memorable character. He doesn't consider himself to be a violent man, although he has killed a lot of people, but only once or twice in anger. He medicates himself with periodic microdoses of LSD and lets himself cry a little, just for emotional hygiene reasons. He is reminiscent of a character out of a Tom Robbins novel. Mr. Chaon actually gives a shout-out to Robbins by naming one of his characters, Tim Ribbons. Will was born to be an abettor. He never knew his father and his mother was a grifter of the first order until he was obligated to kill her. Yet, Will remains good-natured and cheerfully ruthless.One day Will and Flip were trucking down the highway, en route to another job when one of his numerous burner phones ring. At first, he ignores it, because no one knows the number of any of his phones, but the ringing persists. Finally, he answers and a female voice says, "Please don't hang up, I think you might be my biological father." this is the jumping-off point of the novel. Apparently, during his misspent youth, Will participated in a transaction with a sperm bank. The voice identifies herself as Cammie and tells Will that she has reason to believe that he is in dire danger. Will, unbeknownst to himself may have inadvertently run afoul of some of his employers who are in competition with one another. And on top of that, Cammie informs Will that there may be as many as 167 progenies, like her, living around the world.Will's business associates try to convince him that Cammie is likely artificial intelligence and not a real person. Will, in conversing with Cammie seems to think otherwise and believes she may well be his biological daughter and since he has no family, after killing his mother for justifiable reasons, he welcomes the familia connection with Cammie. As it turns out Will is being pursued by nefarious individuals, sometimes disguised as big, bright, yellow, robot drones with mouths like a kitten's and enormous cute eyes that take up half its face. So, Will with Cammie's cell phone guidance is on the run from, well. . .he is not really sure who his true enemies are, as there are a host of possibilities. From this point, we enter into areas of genetic experimentation in which Will has been an unwilling participant for years, dating back to his birth, and, of which, he is totally unaware.With Will on the run for his life is where I will leave you. Early in the novel, Will expresses his most fervent ideal scenario, to wake up on an island with amnesia. Is that what will happen to Will? Is Cammie a real person? And, if she is real, is she Will's biological daughter?Despite the dystopian aspect of the novel, there are still familiar parts of America that Will visits in his travels with Flp. There is often a very real sense of place wherever he finds himself. Parts of the country that he travels through are Utah, Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia (the place which has been the least impacted by the nation's decline), Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and North Dakota. Basically, a large part of middle America. And like its predecessor, TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, SLEEPWALK is very atmospheric in time, place, and situation.SLEEPWALK, is fun, exciting, evocative, charming, and thought-provoking. Someone described the novel as, "both gritty and sweet at the same time." There is no better description for SLEEPWALK, Dan Chaon's best book, and my favorite book of 2022.
    • 4/5
      This book was a wild road trip that I was unable to put down. What a likable killer!
    • 5/5

      “I don’t know. People are crazy, that’s what I want to explain.” Sleepwalk is the novel that some of us needed in 2022 when the incessant weirdness of our nonfictional times was just about too much to take. Writer Dan Chaon is a master class storyteller, and he does not flinch from plumbing the depths and stirring up some emotion from a cold, dark place.

      This is the story of a harrowing road trip taken by a fixer-for-hire guy called “The Barely Blur” and his loyal, rescue pit bull named Flip. One day, this man (of a hundred aliases and off-the-grid nefarious activities) is unexpectedly contacted on one of his burner phones by a young woman claiming to be his biological daughter. This literal cross-country road trip is also interspersed with memories recalling Barely Blur’s complicated life and his path on the way to losing everything. But maybe, and this is key, maybe through the pain, he finally succumbs to caring about a connection with something or someone on the way.

      Boy, oh boy, this book is a lot, skillfully told. There is a truly wide variety of legal and illegal means of survival and escape included (everything from automotive to psychological). There’s a seriously disturbing, sociopathic mother from Hades but also intelligently described females along for the ride of the narrative. And wait, there’s more. A stint in an asylum. Off-handed memories of killing, theft-scapades, kidnapping, and cleaning up bloody shooting scenes. Colorful portrayals of life-long drug use for everything from relaxation to self-medication to murder. Contemplation about parental responsibilities and failures. Much about self-identity and betrayal and letting go of control. Finally, as a bonus, there is a whacked conspiracy theory as a framework for the story.

      Prescient, future times are the important background setting for this novel, slowly revealed in glimpses. It’s set in an oddly believable and absolutely dystopian USA in various stages of societal collapse and under surveillance by deviously cute robots and drones. In this digital panopticon world ruled by hackers, there’s nowhere to hide from CCTV cameras everywhere, a true horror.

      Fortunately, this novel is not all dark as a black hole. Loyal pit bull Flip is a beautiful dog companion. There’s a nice rift of music threaded through the storyline. There was admirable thought given to naming the cast of characters in the story. Our main guy is known by everything from Willie Bare, Jr. to Nature Boy to Davis Dowty to Will Bear, and so on. Folks who recall encountering Tom Robbins novels in the 70’s will note a funny callback with a character named Tim Ribbons. A chain of stores is cleverly called “Dollar Dangle” – no truer name. And honestly, it is wonderfully written, perfect for the summer of 2022.

      I loved the hell out of this novel. You pulled it off, and bless your heart, Dan Chaon.

      This is the best ARC I’ve received from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program. Many thanks!

    • 4/5
      Wow, What a really good story.As soon as I was on chapter 2 I was hooked. The main character is not someone anyone would like per say but the author did a great job at making me like him and want to keep reading to find out what happens next to him. I liked how the author took me on a journey with the main character, I felt like I was there. It was sort of a futuristic story with out it being syfy. It was just the right amount of bizarre and a bit weird but not over the top. Not at all my normal type of book but I am so glad I was given this Arc to read. I really liked it.
    • 4/5
      What an entertaining book this is! Yes, it's weird and yes, it's strange but it's also completely unique, surprising, touching and darkly funny. The main character, Willie, or whatever name he's going by at any given time, is one mean, tough guy but he has a kind heart and I couldn't help but care about him, despite all the horrible things he'd done in his life. The author does an excellent job of fleshing out this character, highlighting his sensitivity and the reasons why he's ended up as he has. And Willie's abused, mean, tough dog, Flip, was the final touch that grabbed hold of my heart.Recommended. I won this book in a giveaway.
    • 3/5
      Good but not one of my favorites of his. Too happy an ending for a Dan Chaon book but it definitely kept me reading.
    • 4/5
      Will (or whatever his real name is) sleepwalks through a dystopian nightmare from which he may never wake up. Throughout, he is gently coaxed into contemplating his traumatic past and life choices by a disembodied voice claiming to be his biological daughter. With this as his premise, Chaon gives us a remarkable meditation on the dangers of isolation and the human need for identity and connection.His setting is the near future in America. With our present in mind, Chaon congers up a menu of catastrophes that seems not only likely but inevitable. These include pandemics, economic recession, decaying infrastructure, climate deterioration, rampant crime, corruption, run-amok technology, and the prevalence of dangerous conspiracy theories. His narrative suggests mankind may be recovering from some vague apocalypse (possibly an ill-advised conflict between superpowers) where people have come to accept as necessary inconveniences, surveillance by robots and drones along with menacing blockades. Chaon’s protagonist is a middle-aged loner working as a fixer/errand-boy for an obscure outfit with the ambiguous title of “Value Standard Enterprises.” Despite almost constant travel, the novel has a claustrophobic feeling. Its protagonist lives off the grid in a camper he lovingly refers to as “The Guiding Star.” Communicating exclusively via burner phones, his sole contacts are with a woman at the home office named Experanza and Cammie, a young woman who purports to be the product of a youthful sperm donation. Chaon intersperses these conversations with Will’s recollections of a bizarrely dysfunctional youth. Will has loads of shortcomings, including a complicated past resulting in traits suggestive of PTSD. He is a paranoid skeptic, who self-medicates with marijuana, alcohol, and LSD. Moreover, he steals and murders with no apparent remorse. Notwithstanding these flaws, Will is a hairy good-natured frump who is quite likeable. Caring relationships with two traveling companions characterize his most endearing qualities. Flip is a fighting pit bull that Will rescued from an abusive situation and Cammie is his putative daughter who tracked him down to warn him about some vague dangers. These two damaged characters are wonderful creations, who provide opportunities for comic relief from what is otherwise a dark and pessimistic novel. Notwithstanding chaotic plotting with too many frayed loose ends, this is an exceptionally entertaining reading experience.
    • 5/5
      Sleepwalk is a dystopian, apocalyptic, psychological thriller set in the not too distant future from 2022, although it was never revealed what year it really is. The book is an easy read. The character development is great and the storyline will keep your attention. Highly recommend!

    Book preview

    Sleepwalk - Dan Chaon

    {ebook_preview_excerpt.html}ˎ$Gݯ8*2u`f.--"tsϨUKA#@ZI 3$,_s5sLP}{7?x?Cm?xGᧇgnͩxLWuϼ6mCk]C\3ᇲ 3`O'ݝ i@+ý "\cVp^vOoXW?v>J*, 6?: ݬ!~o?y?oMF#PT|k`exY>&Wh'FB]=ı΢{Em9-M/E58b< a/Gw(x+u,Na?PSѹWhW x(tb\uغN߳ x`)]şݮ0{#V{+'x^¾8Bv/dAn,}WL0Fi,0wtokMy|X[vX֗n^>kp4F6wwSuy궘E|x;m|Twqs6gU.l1>q\:bzcXG!5x">Xcǯx~|NgWZ.>;C!px9.ttvғi9M߼o>(x 55ox7>_<6p'w]84hOC7);WXHqfW,vPc~pMM>È;.>(஢^o& Nmvj݀ԤM] ׄ𷢁jp r5{k]86W7\@lnQ6B@c&cڠEK-{əJ|u8Eq/-, a|qhҍ(8zNPpj)Ll%p\LbxAʖ0.iPy8!dxP~8Ͻtl_ '"t+$]q/ 6nzf}+0I~dEVa,50Iʡ+P6Eާ:M0\.g,}&l2znr%²e? 09D+\9CD,ȓa~#sD=)*f-$ڔH8XkO8j; !.z;ڛ•L@| c,6RHp X>!vg<_O2<ҍY6cRq -xJ6Q˶Sjn4(ns7 Y!^ )간oY,(dg٘rlݴU:)w'rx^| J`ڋ\S,,Cm|?zCE[_G:؋Z und/RۚiFddj[Kg؇5<ڻ؅`2 4[t~s Ta+O^eqBW{tg+̲[6п 9to.~W хJ&y^`fT-kpa; n+"!|UMZheWr..aOʁKpͥmKG4:¾??.`6J婎%;0rttlt&A@g!!H񕨱n;{NOp1uN&-(Fx>sw5aQO1na +EzB.bĒ;WR(4uf'd|4a0+ Wja'0ཇ=Hݼ^.@ؠW#{l:ڿdf 4ĉ&r`=X "tWLΔVGJQ`ԏЮ Cf'#hQ'a 6tWDr"NU !TDat]О#g殮p2xzhcC7K΂,{EC%! +fk$8DfSeޟmNX@PܞN zk@IjyKR?Wa /1+pS{@Ѧ e[K\~Mw5TS|4S:&g@N]%PZ™'Ă)9Eiz6&Ia+;Z^aUX 4ᐔ^I)0+F֓B!Ż9-M0-=gEW`ys~QoV!/FW-r`."PUY0} Ɉ6YZ@E>?T_%˶rtVdfɅR~_|;pBǗ_rL`ݛi& >nI BFLȱYQK=>):3HFA(7)15%(z}(;dk Z{A~U=/Lx==mb.>';ni$;$~4+S۳N=~Bk4oL3t$T]\*_a#x, M6ٳBKRZ"ȴqhNY*ݲi##sթe+֞(swC.orU7$CD%u'n.9ej2- =UGlGNKTFf[vo4)nFˍ+OH\NČQ \Mdr,CLX/iZ cNwrNlZ J#}XX*Byc.u9Xߟ ]$l$x\EEW3XV=eZ~Cå032!ϨH0{\ex޾r8_w,1Vձa^jŽٌCqog$cx3R~3o-v'YCS-oydmq?7$dGTTm5򂛅d40gi JF?N:1lEq%K'iLĥfT~ +t 0ZP_g\Y"2fTck\Qz#U8e )1C=qx *;ڐK,`iV̖ycؚp[+aiٛ\iV. Id˅|\H403LdRA S)3'FgC+˛xngBuf1l %֪W.7hap~\J"Pn z6[Wғ5'N:ESDq`" 1C"+ZdM)J2V2 `ym-;CY?howOK̐"dá<`wbTs/w*&jxf%Cc~y.OjJ[_NⓁ|:%[ed~i\w{MJ+б`V+qTU*-rn"*}|J &sU2)gn +~;nӊe;_|{G"\>B2)p?YΊJOUf Ҽ#ҨeQ%Q4>gb뾙,?.i [LZYػby{|:Yz/J=NK6'bjRx]2_X]HQݟv$m*ñ:eLuo 76A-jc]}rB=bݧD2CxmNpִ LѮZ ^͉}*@q$N"W(J_:LCd?ƙ$Co>gb719,|迣K:!$2zȴNeY$Rrdy!I¿PnI˙{嚖) nm|)Bÿ6ŭU*m+$6gJP4f;:O3G?"NJP|$=)m6mNwc\|[q2'qS@<뜡,Lze=Y9.f*ǝs/\sCѧkdjn[XL )yAGÌj3ڗ ϑɋZ;,K*3/)20Z= ޱBhOJsWJOp)`ƴLyT;_.Jz2}[_Xqs\O*a*?է%I/""h;uad$ +EGb{8:? !lsM1D݉*ñ`md J['6sYOr1g?ҊMr 03XjBGߜ@澔2ڄH'{ef?{Z:FXzq[JS趱\0%^ljU889umi}Zy[!}|VWEk=$kQ[ōO`=.m ) p`S4MehW&Oe=/5m-o&<,c6Xf򪵂 KDU{T,dgy*A}*{" s{+ X4-k1t :ga9Τń¾O8#%xX|jo cDXw3=2ps=N hh`,sԚ!Wcńyr[pj3uWfȤ\nI; n)SS@*f ѯȑX׋Fw\~v>;zgvA̼x {ʚ n/NJ,D|f3y#]CeR`t'ۅRwNNi?zϲ'@?Mup4UQ˭QJʄ+5'kD}&D7 SdEE$ȬN~'b&av`ט]2)EҜ:C .vLM$ %!s#`oX6֖`}#NȆ T!2[JrxD(?1?Z|xPRӒ۾{WTA(bj8:Ư@z}KDgkHUQ\]m6==ʻ]]SDYj Ω[HZrfP?cMxd_-7uHbsQ"}D;xP^F} H~"NH,՛ڄԼ6ĥze'*;*Y ^鬢+f"Ń;Mj`|Y+_#aV>Uq5}:X#@ 0&a|j\e9N[қ(/#*|/f)d]cRU?8EV_ATfs&hU쌅k:e]-$;a:#-7v->dăFՄDb(B%}jF;7J2EdNe. w'vbU!2ކ,}$YQ&{^7`q-ؗrcɊ%4G~tg{ZUì2nۮam4xmkD"]TNx!G\yqK.,wdF'}Cq0#^(s[74cǶ?t b|^w䪘a Ht>E5YZ~p}B\\{zqk|vTB◣|^|8#zC)/~z[3("V`5T) S;l]B&fq^d9gѹe~y?ɏ)a=pmИt%Y>cԴ%'2$Λt6c25{҃'V`a0@Y~Li _.5|؉^eѥh0"idK&X *IŦ}: zcj 9>SueVT7óz`uG_g[$$&:JNGԋ ,-!vdO!22N* +Hj*>``m Z1kr:(ɢ]b&Zq<7,KcjMTc +;=>PfP&nOR\)絵͚MkS#\Un&k` gYyDlroX6;)׊4 $_i҈"Y;C{d΍ZDBLYP0'f"JRjxz"D\+(-YTWc0$6XGܗG~? im Fe>ˬq )L{IDlQŠ풻h^) 2X$gvWyXN+L-O}=nEn&AɃ1?@P -SQ\Y+^_8$G5%xv2$\#r;sFVE?.ݐڴ*u+=3҄jY? Nr JHsAInT#SsTmﭛc5JTpSW9n wSã.7NwsD!Db7}9U $ͥƘ_Jp'ZR)mR)Kʾ=&_xJldg֐suK]P1Er$H}L3uxNd7,đÎfT'))\\3@kfRleHwAT45vSnRl ktb25UHVl:M l|锒4 !ܩ`p'UoI۾ 'YFd(sC=$@'DGCPI4e6(aƼcyHM6/>Uۺb4A~otEE5 Ŕ'(-\)@SSZiΐyU*!woc4= (".1Z!;!c^1$akI8O_'q^N N|ggT $N~x!mJlU]^1c߱3p}֘ax6c$bMQn#ef8|go=Ry6݀H#cs&&UK\>Kq IS5&9K9=k\r[!VYT!5~K;=2g%lH`p$UkqߊJZo>4m;+M?U9iڋڡ,gDih߫&&3kJ!խlȁJ)maz4QK}祩.gx ryX24iHmx,]MkL44a1[ jvUH[}׽4R[#3)arf8 8Ww!E*l4a*,:ƎˏF,a@< $VH|31:OWi5A7e6ᕒwg^e7LxhV*l]0. $YL#vH6).XpevT2T#n.e,NU2Kx쪜lƊ ZZ3s'0֕T>z7.]OiF{>+wTkw GaU#ɑ4z95#|cӘpx1tٳ;#{R4XC h" US qqZ^= z[V+SeF-#ڧJZ0 -(l3l'տ+v+Cs+WRljpVZ̃ *~+/*U%) %mT -$ MD6+\ht7iMxa5>gL׽4G\v.]>Mr~΍{B)3MǶt3nRT"4*"W]`Ւ P$~"ܨf2)k >K#է!I5V#9+{6v:Qʃר"sdFBcɜyUT!%zΨ:""S%6V憟2$.+S"OfV_r2fnĄ4O#3VivNq{y99ꍳtʗ7ى jD=3-Y\z:n3M #<AL3Tʚwgۋ.+k&5QJ?zeaԭOYuFέLRMb@hj62s5~[13mWw.rx$h2TcD 0k{+r)l/qauIZ>g% 2q4MRgSX9)l o|dlqu]}.͕d <,|b(N.5BFB\s p1V SCDa3>1m<\SFN$WNOH^j`pwHvHϰHc7jɪ "u\d;0sr~C KLr_T2dgoTՑmg@&hz5YF#fU: 5NݑLC:|6#mqX~թ<5Րd8*SJL%&DQ0uɬǑV˶Y93[X*[ 5#o>aL)έzM8)2YU#5+Gaa dG KmMX)t%'[]4XTdwy8U=SG\Aw@lĬRrGDx?g*?{HW*iɂsҙw,#UK1VyJ9\~,"Ki- B-f>4᜞9rīMIF^uKa͙]$֍E}S-frq cͰ>OcʕfRթ6,xhn}6 vR.ښRÙ}CzvVCC6 #PJvogځWP9hL_ʗ39RK'VD`wpÉPZqT=`rD v'VRf4& 7'\YC֨z2V4œtrqkzZ'u*ri)yk=[mST:I&u9="UnÊ4if3=!OsC*5CNråu6Aqiz.ꎇ&~SECh PQCo*S;C_аhߙ7HE'?gR p=Φ==:S'UN[s7P2;Ԥ%7$BK읠n ^i~|
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