Little Sleep The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay
Publication: Holt Paperbacks (2009), Paperback, 288 pages / ISBN 0805088490
Genre: Mystery
Rating: 2/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenges: 2009 Pub Challenge (#3)

This is a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book and will be released March 3.

I had a lot of hope for this book. Unusual detective set in a noir-ish world? Awesome cover? Lots of potential! Unfortunately I didn’t really like it. It’s not bad, necessarily, but I didn’t enjoy reading it.

Summary from Amazon:

Mark Genevich is a South Boston P.I. with a little problem: he’s narcoleptic, and he suffers from the most severe symptoms, including hypnogogic hallucinations. These waking dreams wreak havoc for a guy who depends on real-life clues to make his living.

Clients haven’t exactly been beating down the door when Mark meets Jennifer Times—daughter of the powerful local D.A. and a contestant on American Star—who walks into his office with an outlandish story about a man who stole her fingers. He awakes from his latest hallucination alone, but on his desk is a manila envelope containing risqué photos of Jennifer. Are the pictures real, and if so, is Mark hunting a blackmailer, or worse?

I think my biggest problem was that I hated Mark. Sure, I felt bad for him because his life sucks, but he kept whining about it and didn’t try to do anything to change it. He isn’t good at verbal sparring, jokes, or detecting (aka his JOB) and he was ultimately just a big fat downer. Also, boring.

The mystery part was interesting, and though it gets confusing because of Mark’s proclivity to hallucinations it does have a very nice solution. And the ending fits in well with the rest of the book– depressing, with lots of things unanswered. More bittersweet than anything else, I guess.

I’m sure that someone somewhere will enjoy reading about a dull “detective” whine his way through solving a mystery that may or may not even exist, but that someone wasn’t me. I appreciate that Mr. Tremblay tried to do something different within the detective noir genre, and once I stop being annoyed at Mark I could see what he was trying to do, but I simply didn’t enjoy the result.

Mr. Tremblay is apparently often compared to Jonathan Lethem. I’d, er, start with Jonathan Lethem first (maybe Gun, With Occasional Music, which I loved) and then move to The Little Sleep. The reverse might make think Mr. Lethem was like Mr. Tremblay, which would be a shame.

Other reviews: Breaking the Fourth Wall | The Book Catapult

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