At a Halloween party that neither Bernie or his two children really want to be at, Bernie collapses and falls into a coma bought on by the accidental combination of two anti-depressants. He emerges from the coma to find his son Chris, the perpetual smart-ass, and his daughter Cathy, a Jewish teen turned self-martyred Catholic, stumbling headlong toward trauma-induced maturity. His ex-wife, his nurse, his nurses's father and his son's best friend are also drawn into the bizarre, frustrating and touching world that surrounds the job of rehabilitating Bernie. The Sleeping Father is about the loss of innocence, the disorientating experience of a second childhood and the nature of love and meaning. But most of all its about the Schwartz's, a singular American family, making their way the best way they know how.