Narcolepsy sounds really awful, guys

I was really certain that I’d posted this review when I finished this book over a week ago, but apparently I didn’t. So apologies if my memory is a bit sketchy here…

“Now there’s only me and everything else is on the periphery, just slightly out of reach or out of touch or out of time.”

Mark Genevich stars in The Little Sleep (a play off Raymond Chandler’s far superior The Big Sleep). Mark is a P.I. in Boston, and suffers from narcolepsy as a result of a car accident a few years ago. Mark does not have funny, Hollywood-style narcolepsy. His is the real thing — he nods off mid-conversation, he can’t drive or hold a “real” job, and he suffers from incredible hallucinations. These hallucinations set off the plot of this novel, as he meets with a client but can’t remember afterwards what really happened, and what his brain made up.

This book rates a solid 3 stars. The narcolepsy aspect fascinated me, and Tremblay does a good job of relaying that surreal feeling that Mark lives with to the reader. Unfortunately, I had really high hopes for this after loving Head Full of Ghosts, and it just does not measure up. I did borrow the second in the series from the library, though, and hope that improves on the first.