The Little Sleep

In this bizarre debut by Paul Tremblay, we meet a narrator who lives in a state most of us only know in dreams or moments of disorientation. Unfortunately, his life hangs on discovering a few key moments in his life (not like Nolan's "Memento") and his time is short. A strange, noirish, imperfect little book.

The Little Sleep By Paul Tremblay Sardonic, sharp and funny in a hard-boiled kind of way, THE LITTLE SLEEP by Paul Tremblay is one of those novels that surprises you--and in a good way. When I initially bought the book, I was thinking it might be fun, since the hero suffers from narcolepsy. But I was a little wary because I could see this whole genre, starting with MONK, presaging an era of detectives suffering from various mental illnesses. Agoraphobia, arachnophobia, claustrophobia, manic/depressive, and so on. On one level, I'm okay with that, because Monk is certainly funny. And I adore weird characters, anyway. And yes, Mark Genevich, the hero, suffers from a very extreme form of narcolepsy where he falls asleep and/or has breaks with reality that cause him to forget who hired him in the first place. But Tremblay handles it extremely well. It's less roll-on-the-floor laughing funny than it is sardonic, and you really get a strong feel for what it must be like to suffer from this disease. And as Mark tries to investigate and weed out reality from fantasy, you develop a rich understanding of his character and sheer doggedness in pursuing what seems like a hopeless case. The case itself intertwines with his own personal life and issues in a way that gives it great depth. What initially only involves other people, soon spreads to his family and quite possibly his dead father. You understand what it means to Mark to find the truth. And you wonder if digging into the past and discovering the truth will hurt him more than help. That depth and the excellent characterizations surprised me. I was expecting a sort of gritty-but-superficial read. What I got was much better. I will definitely be looking for more books by Tremblay. He's got weird, unique characters that remind you why we are so attracted to the underdog. We want poor Mark to win and uncover the truth--bitter though that may be. We're rooting for him. We feel every kick in the ribs he gets along the way. Good job, Mr. Tremblay. And please, write faster.

A superb example of what "neo noir" ought to look like but seldom does, The Little Sleep is a consistently inventive and almost-too-casually disturbing tour through the darker patches of the human condition. Tremblay's talent for ratcheting up the tension is near unbearable at times, especially during those last six chapters where the main character's bleak reality blurs with the unreality of his narcolepsy symptoms -- while the plot forges ahead mercilessly at a breakneck pace. The reader just has to hold on tight and hope the rails don't rattle to pieces before the ride is over. A keenly orchestrated piece of work, a helluva a good read, and highly recommended by me.

When he was younger Mark Genevich and his college pal George were in an auto accident. Neither were wearing seatbelts. George went though the front window and was killed. Mark was stopped by the glass, but it ruined his face and he suffered brain damage. His brain still works, but the accident turned him into a Narcoleptic who has hypnogogic hallucinations with an occasional bout of cataplexy. Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder that causes sudden attacks of sleep. Yep, you fall asleep in the middle of the day, anytime, anyplace. Cataplexy in it's worse form can completely paralyze and individual. He's awake and conscious, but paralyzed till the episode passes. Hypnogogic hallucinations are sort of like waking dreams. You're not asleep, not awake either, you're somewhere in between, mixing the real up with the imaginary, thinking it's all real. And our erstwhile here P.I. Mark Genevich has all three, plus he likes to crack wise. In the opening chapter a pretty brunette with legs that go "from the north of Maine all the way down to Boston" comes into his office with a story about someone stealing her fingers. She leaves a couple photos of herself, one of which she's in a state of undress. When Mark wakes she's gone. But he has the photos. He knows he's imagined the missing fingers, but the photos are real. So what does she want? Is she being blackmailed? When he attempts to find out someone is killed and he's being followed. His place is ransacked. Someone wants him dead. If he could just remember. This is a fun read that is so well written that I bought right into the character and his disorders. Mark, because of those disorders, makes a lot of boneheaded mistakes, but he's got a good head on his shoulders, good intuition and sometimes he gets lucky. Also, he's like a dog with a bone, he's persistent and he's every bit as good a character as Jeff Lindsey's Dexter. My prediction, it won't be long before he's got his own TV series, too.

When a reality TV diva falls into Mark Genevich's office with a hot case and a hefty check, he knows things will be weird. But everything's weird for Genevich. South Boston's most rinky-dink private dick lives in a constant Krazy Kat fantasyland because of chronic narcolepsy. Despite the title, this book bears only a shirt-tail bond to Raymond Chandler's noir classic The Big Sleep. Author Paul Tremblay is less interested in Chandler's story than his world-weary tone and rigidly moral character. But Tremblay makes his PI a man out of time, a self-conscious anachronism. Genevich is less Chandler's Philip Marlowe than Robert Altman's screen version in The Long Goodbye. Genevich is a gripping mix of modern and dated. He knows people dislike him. He cultivates his archaic mein to cover his physical wounds. Like the best detectives, his bodily scars are shadows of his internal mutilation. But Tremblay pushes it a step farther. The wounds that slash Genevich's soul are a small fraction of those that maim everyone around him. He's a damaged man in a damaged world. Yet Genevich remains an endlessly fascinating character. His dogged persistence, growing from gimlet-eyed belief in justice, is matched by his grim humor and screw-you indifference to others' scorn. He's funny and repellent by turns. You stick with him because you need to know how awful his next decision will be. There's no let-up in his entropic world. Every choice digs his grave a little deeper. He knows he's harming his few remaining confidantes, yet honesty and anger forbid him to stop. The problem is, he can't tell what's real and what's phony in his own mind because his illness transforms his eyes into liars. Part of a trend in offbeat thrillers, this novel creates a character whose only predictability is that he can't be predicted. And he fights a crime that only tells the truth about its lies. This is a captivating character in a sophisticated story, for fans or beginners in the noir thriller world.