Ballantine / Doubleday / Random House
US Hardcover First Edition
ISBN 978-0-345-50113-4
Publication Date: 01-11-2010
368 Pages; $25.00
Date Reviewed: 01-26-2010
The things that matter most to us in this world are so fragile, so imperiled by the events that swirl around us that we must care — we must act. When you become a parent, you truly become a citizen of the world. Gazing at that little life, which you created, you know you must protect it with every ounce of life in you from the world that surrounds both of you. And you can't help but feel a little bit guilty about the state of things. That life, that baby was brought into a world you helped create. Maybe you should have done something different. Maybe you can still do something different.
Charlie Huston has written novels in a variety of styles. The Henry Thompson stories are hyper-violent tales of gritty, real-world revenge. The Joe Pitt casebooks manage the difficult feat of being even more violent, more profane, and grittier all with the addition of the fantastical element of vampires — Charlie Huston style, of course. 'The Shotgun Rule' cuts pretty close to the bone for Huston. It's set in his old stomping grounds, at the time when he was stomping (or getting stomped on.) But to my mind, his latest, the surreal, virtual-reality, dystopian apocalyptic novel, 'Sleepless' is his most personal novel. There's a lot of raw soul here rubbed up against the increasingly awful present, even if the book is set in the future. 'Sleepless' is one of those science fiction novels where the future gets to do double duty, where our world, so confusing, so chaotic, blends into our nightmares. So, yes, 'Sleepless' is in a sense a horror novel as well.
All this is outside the book itself, which is written as a sophisticated and gritty near-future noir. Parker Haas is an undercover cop who is working as a drug dealer, looking for a connection to the lucrative trade in Dreemer. Dreemer will not cure, but can offer relief for the sleepless, those who have contracted a prion disease that results in fatal insomnia. (It's based on a real disease.) We meet Parker in third-person narration, and in his first-person journals. Parker's wife is sleepless, and his newborn baby may be as well. We also meet an unnamed (at first) narrator, who, in the first person, seems to be looking for something related to Parker's search. How these two characters are connected and how the three narratives will come together becomes a very intense plot driver for this immersive, engaging novel.
Huston has a real knack for creating a realistic noir future that's not like much else out there. He uses the science fiction tropes well, world-building with restrained skill and a very fierce imagination. His setting is of the "day after tomorrow" variety, and he handles the imaginative and speculative writing with consummate ease. He knows just how much detail to place to create a vivid, dystopian Los Angeles that has pretty much lapsed into anarchy, but just doesn't know this yet. The jagged edges of the tripartite narrative overlap and as well leave gaps that are all-too-easily filled by the reader's imagination.
The narrative style also works both in terms of creating vivid characters and driving the plot. Parker is on the edge of agony; his wife, whom he loves deeply is going to die. He cannot protect either his wife or his child — but he can make some arrests. Huston does a superb job with Parker. You believe and feel his terror and helplessness in the face of a world coming apart at the seams. The emotions are raw, real and authentically affecting. There is humor in here as well, but it's pretty dark.
The unnamed narrator is equally well-drawn, but he's polar opposite of Parker. This is a man who moves with ease through the chaos, a man with no attachments but a strong sense of morals. As his path begins to track Parker's, we come to understand more and more their connections. He's a great character that makes the novel quite compelling, and a perfect execution so far as the mystery genre is concerned.
The prose in 'Sleepless' cuts way back on Huston's usual invective-laced humor, but there are still some nice turns of phrase in this regard. Huston's work here is really quite different from his previous work, though. This book has a bit denser feel to it, while maintaining the pulse-pounding nature of all of Huston's oeuvre. It's not self-consciously literary, but I'm quite certain that readers of literary fiction will find it rich and satisfying. There is a lot of pulse-pounding tension and violence. But it's filtered through the perceptions of a father grieving for his wife and child even though neither is dead — yet.
'Sleepless' is certainly Huston's most personal work to date. You can feel the new-fatherhood terror — the terror of bringing a child into a world that seems to be tearing itself apart — keenly. I would recommend that readers go into the book with no more information than I've imparted with this review. The less you know about 'Sleepless,' the better. The novel will indeed leave you sleepless, not just because it keeps you up all night trying to find out how the narratives come together, but as well, because Huston's vision is every bit as infectiously overwhelming as the prion disease he creates.
The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires Eric Stener Carlson Reviewed by
Mario Guslandi
Under the Dome Stephen King Reviewed by
Rick Kleffel
New to the Agony Column
02-22-10: Commentary : Graeme Gibson's 'The Bedside Book of Birds' and 'The Bedside Book of Beasts' : A Feast for Your Mind, Your Eyes and Your Mind's Eye
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2009 Interview with Graeme Gibson : "Our common humanity, our common culture, will help make the connections."
02-19-10: Commentary : Ralph Waldo Ellison 'Three Days Before the Shooting ...' : One Book, Many Stories
Agony Column Podcast News Report : John Callahan and Adam Bradley and 'Three Days before the Shooting' : "I've moved through the phases of my own life, and I find those phases mirrored in the characters of this novel." — John Callahan "...capable of brilliance, eloquence and power; that's how I understand the second novel, as we see it in Three Days Before the Shooting, and that's certainly how I understand, and I think how Ellison understood, America." — Adam Bradley
02-18-10: Commentary : George Mann Scares Up 'The Ghosts of Manhattan' : Hard Core Pulp Action
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Speaking Frankly With Thomas Frank : From Tea to Shining Tea : "When I think about what I'm saying, it's so depressing..."
02-17-10: Commentary : Thomas More, Clarence Miller and 'Utopia' : Politics, Satire, Fantasy
02-15-10: Commentary : 'Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded' by John Scalzi : A Decade of Whatever
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni : "I have to work through the novel and then it comes to me, how it's going to end."
02-12-10: Commentary : Stephanie Merritt Becomes S. J. Parris : 'Heresy'
02-11-10: Commentary : Max Watman 'Chasing the White Dog' : Home-Made Hooch and Rebellion
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview With Sam Farr : : "The money came from Washington, but the uses for that money came from the local community."
02-10-10: Commentary : Anne Lamott Spots 'Imperfect Birds' : The Ties That Unbind
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Speaking Frankly: Thomas Frank on Re-Populism and Re-Launching The Baffler : "I have never seen 'populist backlash in a headline before."
02-09-10: Commentary : Douglas Clegg Returns to 'Neverland' : Is 1980's Horror Returning from the Grave?
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2009 Interview with David Drake, Part 2 / Complete : "I didn't have governor ... that is ... anything, endgame, was me killing somebody."
02-08-10: Commentary : David Louis Edelman Completes Jump 225 : 'Geosynchron'
02-05-10: Commentary : DC Pierson is 'The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To' : The Insomnia Vibe
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books with Alan Cheuse: Too Much Money, Dominick Dunne; The Privileges, Jonathan Dee; Adam Haslett, Union Atlantic; The Forty Rules of Love, Elif Shafak; Wild Child, T. C. Boyle
02-04-10: Commentary : David Grann and 'The Devil and Sherlock Holmes' : An Obsession with Obsession
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Josh Sundquist : "It was a really amazing testament to the power of small-town America and to the power of organized religion at its best."
02-03-10: Commentary : James Rollins Unleashes 'The Altar of Eden' : Monsters at the Zoo
02-01-10: Commentary : 'He Walked Among Us' : Cassandra, John Titor and Norman Spinrad
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Charlie Huston : "The prospect of things becoming deeply unhinged seemed very, very immediate"
01-29-10: Commentary : Henghis Hapthorn Meets 'Hespira' : Matthew Hughes Devolves the Universe
01-27-10: Commentary : Glen Cook Walks the 'Shadowline' : Every Old (Science Fiction) Thing is New (Space Opera) Again
Agony Column Podcast News Report : An Interview with Jeff Carlson at SF in SF on January 16, 2010 : "The bad guys never consider themselves the bad guys..."
01-19-10: Commentary : Gene Wolfe Moves into 'The Sorcerer's House' : Magical Surrealism
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books with Alan Cheuse : Don Delillo: 'Point Omega,' Robert Stone: 'Fun With Problems,' Douglas Preston: 'Impact'
01-18-10: Commentary : George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois Bring On 'Warriors'n : An Anthology Waiting to Happen
