Before I Go to Sleep
Before I Go to Sleep is the first novel by S. J. Watson published in Spring 2011. It became both a "Sunday Times" and "The New York Times" bestseller and has been translated into over 40 languages, and has become a bestseller in France, Canada, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. It reached number 7 on the US bestseller list, the highest position for a debut novel by a British author since J. K. Rowling. "The New York Times" described the author as an "out-of-nowhere literary sensation". He wrote the novel between shifts whilst working  as a National Health Service (NHS) audiologist. Plot. The novel is a psychological thriller about a woman suffering from anterograde amnesia. She wakes up every day with no knowledge of who she is and the novel follows her as she tries to reconstruct her memories from a journal she has been keeping. She learns that she has been seeing a doctor who is helping her to recover her memory, that her name is Christine Lucas, that she is 47 years old and married and has a son. As her journal grows it casts doubts on the truth behind this knowledge  as she determines to discover who she really is. Film adaptation. Ridley Scott acquired the film rights and hired Rowan Joffe as director. Nicole Kidman leads as Christine Lucas with Colin Firth as her husband. Mark Strong plays Dr Edmund Nash and Anne-Marie Duff plays Christine's friend, Claire. The film was shot in London and at Twickenham Studios.