Ray BradburyFiction · Short Stories·1920–2012
The Whole Town's Sleeping
Synopsis
Ray Bradbury sets "The Whole Town's Sleeping" in his familiar small-town America, where a strangler called the Lonely One has left the community locking its doors at dusk. Lavinia Nebbs refuses to be frightened out of an ordinary summer evening and goes out with friends, crossing the ravine that everyone else avoids after dark.
What begins as a pleasant night out tightens, step by step, into one of Bradbury's most sustained exercises in suspense — assembled almost entirely from footsteps, crickets, a held breath, and the long walk home.
How it reads
Genres
Characters
Lavinia NebbsProtagonist
A self-possessed unmarried woman who refuses to let the town's fear keep her indoors, and who walks home alone across the ravine after an evening out.
The Lonely OneAntagonist
The unseen strangler whose killings of local women have the whole town locking its doors after dark.
FrancineSupporting
One of Lavinia's friends, far more rattled by the killings and reluctant to let her walk home alone.
Douglas SpauldingSupporting
Tom SpauldingSupporting
