Customer Reviews

Die a Little: A Novel

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was a great read! One I had a very hard time putting down. Set in 1950's Hollywood, it explores the dark, twisted lives of high powered studio men, call girls, drugs and murder. Bill and Lora are siblings living in quiet suburbia in Pasadena. He's a cop and she's a school teacher. Then Bill meets vivacious Alice Steele when her car hits his. A friendship blossoms, and soon after a relationship. The two marry, buy a house, and settle into simple lives.

In the beginning all is well. Lora is happy for her brother and loves having sophisticated Alice around, who throws lavish neighborhood parties and is always in the spotlight. But soon Lora starts to notice little things that don't seem quite right. Dark edges around sweet Alice...who is Alice really, and where did she come from?

As Lora gets deeper and deeper into the trenches of shady Hollywood, she begins to realize that she's getting caught up in everything, she's beginning to change from the mundane schoolteacher into something else, something bad. Can she figure everything out before it's too late? I've gotta say I really recommend this book. I initially picked it up because of the era it's set in, but the story really grabbed me. Definitely give it a try...you won't be disappointed!

I found this novel impossible to put down. Think of the dark atmospheric films of David Lynch, but here you get a much more satisfying, coherent story. The two most important women characters play a fascinating game of cat and mouse. I really liked the character of Alice: hot, smart and always ready to act as her circumstances change. The author is particularly good at giving all of her characters psychologically plausible motivations. When you get to end, you will be thinking about it for days.

I was hooked on this book by the end of the first page. There is something really different about it--aside from the powerful characters being women. You feel like you've stepped into Hollywood in the fifties because the author so captures the atmosphere of that era. After I finished, I felt like going out and finding some old movie magazines. Do they still publish them? And yet, the writing is very literary--poetic even. Waiting eagerly for the next book. Hope she sets it in Hollywood in the fifties too.

Schoolteacher Lora King shares a home with her brother Bill, an investigator with the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. They are decent middle class hardworking people who are very close to each other until Alice Steele enters their lives. Bill is besotted with her and within a few months he marries her. Lora tries to like her but she feels that Alice is trying too hard to be the perfect housewife.

Seeing inconsistencies in her behavior, Lora investigates Alice's background which leads to her to thinking her in-law is involved in something criminal. A friend Lois from Alice's former life acts trashy as she depends on Alice to bail her out when she gets into trouble. Alice befriends the wife of Bill's friend, who shortly thereafter commits suicide just prior to Lois being murdered. It is only when Bill is prepared to break the law to abet his wife does Lora act to put an end to Alice's influence with the help of a very connected criminal who bears no love for Alice.

DIE A LITTLE is a dark urban 1950s Hollywood noir where even honest lawmen break the law if they can get away with it. Lora is a fascinating character who loves her brother too much to let him throw his life away on a criminal and is a bit jealous of the hold Alice has on her sibling. There are no heroes in this book, only people who do what is necessary to get their own way. Megan Abbott is a fine writer who uses the first person narrative as a way of increasing the tension and the gradual feeling of overwhelming foreboding.

Harriet Klausner

Megan Abbott's novel is a rare and refreshing combination of noir and literary fiction, both hauntingly dark and brilliantly written. What's interesting is that the novel contains two femme fatales, one who inhabits the role as naturally as she breathes and the other who, by unconsciously courting the "darker elements" to protect her heroic yet naive brother, grows into a dangerous and deadly enemy. It's not often that a novel is satisfying on so many levels--plot, character, style and execution--but this one's a real winner. I couldn't put it down!

I loved Megan's Abbott's book! It's an achievement. She handles the form as a master. The writing is elegant -- I especially like the rhythms of the catalogs, the litanies; the vivid present tense. And, I like the subtlety with which she weaves her ideas -- the fusion of noir and fifties-suburban-ideal; the feminist take on both genres -- into a fast-paced and entertaining novel. It is cinematic. A great debut.

I just got this book yesterday--and read the whole thing overnight. I have always loved James Ellroy, and Abbott's first book is a beautifully written addition to the hardboiled LA noir literary landscape. I was especially moved by the poignant and lyrical prose that Abbott uses to detail her more poetic and haunting contribution to the genre. The characters are pitch-perfect. The men are sympathetically conflicted, racing back and forth between clenched toughness and masked fragility. And the women are complex, sophisticated, and insightful--infinitely more layered than the only two variations of femininity in traditional noir, the femme fatale and the innocent belle.

What's best about Abbott's novel is the way in which she elevates the entire genre. This is not simply a great example of hardboiled fiction: it is an intricate literary narrative with tremendous grace and style--from the achingly beautiful reverie of its opening, to the shockingly uncanny reverses of its taut plot, to the poignant quietness of its ending.

Judging from what I think is her first effort, Abbott promises to be a major talent. I will be fascinated to see what she produces next!

Nice job, Ms. Abbott! Your novel was so tough to put down, and the writing was excellent--so much better than most of the tripe American authors slap down on a page. Your heroine was wonderful, and her hint of decadence made us like her more since it was surrounded by her innate goodness, conservatism, and family orientation.

Particularly arresting was that moment when Lora sees Alice looking through the family photo album late at night--your description of Alice's expression was truly haunting and secured me as a fan of your writing.

You were able to elicit from your phrasing a dense, murky atmosphere that felt so real. I felt like I was in southern California in the early '60s every time I picked up the book to continue reading of Lora's, Bill's, and Alice's tale.

The characterization of Alice was gripping. Just when she's "arrived", she realizes she can't quite (and doesn't even want to) give up her sordid past. Your description of how she can keep up her public face 99 percent of the time makes the 1 percent appearance of the dark Alice all the more scary.

I can't wait for your next novel!. I'll definitely read it because this one was so thoughtful and different.

The pages of this book fly by, filled with all the dark, dangerous, drugs and sex riffs from the 1950's. When you need something light and engrossing, this book is a "sinister" diversion.

The characters are so real, the prose sharp, electric. It really is 60's noir, the language, the atmosphere, the tension. Megan Abbott is a very accomplished writer. If you are ready for the loss of innocence, the descent into hell, then this is for you. No romance or softness here.