Perhaps I’m just spending too much time in workshops, these days, but I find that my reaction to a lot of books, lately, is: It’s good, but the author needs a better editor.

I suppose it’s a bit of a ridiculous complaint to have, because usually the author in question has their book with Holt, or Knopf, or, you know, a house that probably has pretty competent editors, on the whole — so I guess what I really mean by “a better editor” is “me as an editor”.

So here’s what I’d say to Paul Tremblay. This is a great book. The plot really captures the reader’s attention, the central conceit (natch, private eye with narcolepsy) is a consistently fresh source of tension, and the exposition is generally spoon-fed to the reader at the right pace and in such an order that the few continuity errors and inconsistencies I might have otherwise been tempted to point out flash by, barely noticeable.

Tremblay also has a keen grasp of the Chandleresque tone demanded by the title, and this is where my editorial spidey-sense really began to tingle, because it’s almost too keen — it’s so casually bandied about, so pervasively, that it gets overwhelming, and then even the truly marvellous turns of phrase begin to lose some of their sheen. That, and the notion of “the little sleep” itself, which makes so many appearances that I came to dread each signal that another was about to appear. As another editor once said to me: you’ve got a good idea, now stop beating us over the head with it.

But let’s face it, I’m being finicky. In the end, what really stuck with me from The Little Sleep was the fantastic rendering of paranoid, hallucinatory drowsiness, wherein the narrator is never quite sure what’s happening and what’s not; after longer periods dipping into the book I’d find myself uneasily wondering if I was even sure I was awake, and that’s a level of influence on your reader that I think every writer should aspire to.

A heartily recommended and very quick read.

Tags:   Andrew · Book Reviews · reading habits · Summer Reading MonthNo Comments