Customer Reviews

The Little Sleep: A Novel

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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.

*The Little Sleep* is an interesting thriller (mystery?) with a gimmick - the narrator is a private investigator who is a narcoleptic (as a result of a head injury) and he frequently falls asleep, or partially asleep, and is prone to hypnagogic dreams and hallucinations. In other words - people can't always tell he is asleep, and he is unable to differentiate between dreams and reality.

Brilliant, eh?

This is a clever and intriguing concept for a novel, and to a certain extent it works. The flawed narrator's humorous, descriptive wisecracks add humor to the story.

Regrettably, like a lot of bestseller type fiction (mysteries, thrillers), the book becomes overly concerned with plot elements that become the essence of the story. What could have been an amazing examination of reality and dreams becomes another stepwise, plot driven whodunit.

For example: The main character is searching for a certain clue (some film), and we have a lengthy description of his searching the entire house, the basement, the backyard, the shed, yada yada yada - and surprise! He finds it! Then he needs to find a projector, then a stepwise description of threading the film through the projector . . . C'mon! Finally, half an eternity later, we find out what is on the film, and there is little suspense or joy because we knew we would discover what was on the film the first time we learned there *was* a film.

So in some respects this book failed to meet its potential; however, I have read there is a sequel in the works. Hopefully there will be more exploration of the nature of narcolepsy, dreams, etc., and less plot driven filler.

Mark Genevich is a very different type of Private Eye ... he is severely narcoleptic, falling asleep at awkward times, having hallucinations even when awake which cause no end of trouble to someone who counts on clues to make his living. Obviously his business isn't exactly booming - when in comes Jennifer Times, who tells him a very odd story about someone stealing her fingers and leaves him some *ahem* steamy photos and lots of questions.

Trying to find the truth is like trying to follow a single scent in Chinatown - there are so many trails, and it is hard to tell what is real and what is a hallucination and what is a waking dream and what is a dream, but Genevich perseveres.

A most interesting debut for Paul Tremblay, who has previously worked in short fiction. He is currently working on a follow-up to this novel, and I, for one, will probably be looking for it. This is a good, solid piece of writing with an unusual character and a fresh direction. Give it a try.

Paul Tremblay's The Little Sleep is great little private eye novel that juxtaposes the very familiar with a unique concept. While reading it, I couldn't help but be reminded of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe private eye novels, but Tremblay threw in extra curves that come directly out of the present. The title is definitely a play on Raymond Chandler's first Marlowe novel, The Big Sleep. That novel was made into a movie that stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Thirty year old private investigator Mark Genevich has narcolepsy. The condition is a result of a car accident eight years ago. Mark was left severely damaged, but his best friend died. Unable to hold a job, Mark tries to follow through on what was initially a lark in his early twenties. Still, even with his disability, he's managed to stay awake long enough to almost make a living. He's subsidized by his mother, Ellen, who lets him live in a building she owns and occasionally fronts him money.

Mark is barely able to take care of himself and is a constant threat to himself because of his smoking. At first, I was somewhat dismayed by all the problems he had, but when I started reading about the ways he tried to compensate for them, I was hooked. Mark has had to learn all kinds of tricks to keep himself awake, and to manage the emotional frailty that results from those times when his body becomes a virtual prison. I've never known anyone with narcolepsy, and the disease is often the punch line of a joke. But for people who have this, it's obviously an uphill battle every day.

Part of Mark's vulnerabilities includes the inability to remember things as well as the likelihood of fantasizing about things. He has to work hard just to sort out the truth of his life. Taking on other people's problems is difficult for him, and usually he keeps his work pared down to stuff with a flexible deadline and little client involvement.

When he gets pictures that immediately remind him of Jennifer Times, the daughter of the local district attorney and television show semi-star, Mark's life takes an immediate turn into dangerous territory. Tremblay hits a lot of familiar notes in his novel, but these are stories I love. Anyone who is a fan of noir will probably have a great time turning pages and watching Mark track down the bad guys.

The plot appears to be convoluted and it wanders around a lot, but basically everything stays close to the bone in this one. Everything has consequence and nothing gets overlooked. Some of the characters do get rather short shrift, but the conceit of the novel is original enough to generate interest. As in all noir novels, this one also has its roots in the past, and that past has to be revealed.

Tremblay's prose is immediately readable and it's easy to keep turning pages. The dialogue is sharp and witty in several places, and there are a number of weird and wacky characters surrounding Mark's life. If you like these kind of novels, you will find too many new curves or twists, and you might even get to the final reveal before Mark does, but there are enough new things to keep the interest up.

I had a good time getting to know these characters. Tremblay is supposed to be working on a sequel to this novel and I plan on picking it up.

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.

Private Investigator Mark Genevich has an office in South Boston. He also has a bit of a problem; he's a narcoleptic. Usually, he only takes cases where he doesn't have to leave his office; but when a Jennifer Times walks into his office and insists he take her case and find her fingers he can't refuse. Or at least he doesn't think he does, you see he woke up with the memory of the office visit but instead of a check there's a manila envelope with two black and white photos of a young woman that looks just like Jennifer.

Genevich evidently switched off and while asleep took notes (which make little sense to his waking self) and he knows that there is a case, he's just not sure what it is. When he tries to contact Jennifer Times, she insists she's never met him. What to do? Someone hired him. He has the photos. So, the first step will be to figure out who hired him and why.

Since the entire novel is told form Mark Genevich's point of view, the reader is left as much in the dark as Mark, we can't know more than he does about anything. The reader and Genevich must decide what memories are are of real events and which are a result of hypnogogic hallucinations. Kept off balance throughout, Genevich is fighting a battle to control his neurological symptoms, retain his memories as well as shift through them to figure out which are real and which are a result of his little sleeps, and solve a crime.

Gritty, noir at its best, The Little Sleep manages to allow the reader to be an active participant in the case as there's little chance the reader will spot clues before the PI since the reader also has to figure out what to believe. Imaginative and entertaining, it's a story you just can't put down.

The blurbs that accompany this novel liken it to Jonathan Lethem's "Motherless Brooklyn," and with good reason. This semi-unreliable narrator, a narcoleptic private dick named Mark Genevich, barely know what's real and what isn't. This means that we also barely know what's going on, but it's not as much of a disappointment as it would be with other novels.

Tremblay has obviously done his homework when it comes to narcolepsy. Instead of leaving us with the more obvious symptoms of the disorder, he includes things that we ordinary folk do not realize comes with the territory, like cataplexy.

The novel's subject matter allows for some really fun and wacky scenes to be added in, like the protagonist thinking he's on the lookout for some stolen fingers. The tale jumps a bit in and out of time and reason, but it all works well within the confines of the story we are being told. I definitely came to the end satisfied, and feeling like all bases had been covered. I look forward to more works like these.

Not just another detective story--because while most private investigators in fiction can't trust their informants, the cops, or even their own clients, in this case the PI can't trust himself. Due to an accident several years ago, Mark Genevich is a disfigured narcoleptic, and in his sleeping phases, he's prone to switching to auto-pilot, where he appears to be awake and alert to others but is actually more or less sleepwalking. This is a problem when his automatic self takes on a case about which he remembers no details and regarding which he has only some compromising photos that appear to be of an "American Star" contestant--whose father happens to be the local DA. And naturally it gets much more complicated from there.

This is a splendid idea for a detective hero and it's well played out, as Genevich alternates between certain lucidity and uncertain somnabulistic hallucinations and sometimes can't tell the difference. It isn't normally high praise for me to say this, but you can easily see this novel being made into a movie, because a talented director could have a lot of fun with the various fugue-state visions and the PI's recurring dream about his long-dead and mysterious father, which begins to change as he uncovers more clues.

A very compelling book that, despite its lethargic topic, speeds along to its conclusion. Warning for the easily frightened--it's written in the first-person and the present tense, so if that puts you off, you should probably skip this. But it's great fun for all others.

Did you hear the one about the narcoleptic detective? No? I hadn't either until I read The Little Sleep, a solid mystery novel which happens to feature a narcoleptic detective. It would be easy for that to be the gimmick and the rest of the story to take a back seat to that gimmick - the trials and tribulations of a private investigator who constantly falls asleep. But that's not how author Paul Tremblay played it. It's quirky, yes, and Tremblay's sense of humor is there in all its glory. The story, however, is solid, and the mystery is intricate and suspenseful. The Little Sleep was a pleasure to read. I was saddened when I reached the last page. It was one of the best mysteries I've read in a long time. I encourage you to pick up a copy. Unlike the main character, it'll keep you up all night.