An Interview with “The Little Sleep” author Paul Tremblay

As I discussed in my last blog entry, there has been a spate of very offbeat detective novels recently released, or forthcoming, and one of the most prominent is Paul Tremblay’s THE LITTLE SLEEP, from Holt Paperbacks. I’ve known Paul for some years now (and I was pleased to find myself and my brother Scott in his novel’s fun acknowledgment pages), having got together with him at Readercon and gatherings of the New England Horror Writers group. In his bio he frequently makes mention of his being without a uvula, and that he once gained three inches in a single twelve hour period. I just had to start out with these facts, in my own detective investigation.

JET: First, Paul, let’s get this out of the way. Three inches in twelve hours…every man would like to achieve this. How’d you do it?

PAUL TREMBLAY: I had scoliosis as a young ’un. It wasn’t caught until I was a teen (for years, the nurse when applying the back checks at my public school only said, “Switch shoulders with your book bag.”) so wearing the clunky brace at night didn’t help the near 45 degree curve in my upper spine. To keep from total kyphosis (me hunching over and my chest cavity losing space and crowding/squishing my organs eventually), I had a spinal fusion three days after graduating high school. Basically, the docs scraped bone from my hip to fuse 2/3 of my vertebrae (held in place with Harrington rods and the like). I was 6’0 140 lbs when I went under. I woke up 6’3, and after a week in the hospital I was down to 125 lbs. I’m 6’4 205 lbs now, and all tiger.

JET: So how did you come upon the idea of having THE LITTLE SLEEP’s Boston-based detective, Mark Genevich, suffer from narcolepsy, as opposed to him suffering from lack of a uvula? Did you start out with the character or the plot, or the simple desire to write a detective novel?

PAUL TREMBLAY: Lack of uvula would only result in kitsch, which is my life.

The Little Sleep was pretty much an eureka moment. I’d sketched out a stereotypical PI scene with a bit of a twist: Beautiful woman walks into a PI’s office then asks him to find out who stole her fingers and replaced them with someone else’s digits. I intended to use that as the springboard to a near-feature, anything-goes SF/horror/noir mash up, but nothing really coalesced and I put the scene away. About a year later I happened to be reading about narcolepsy and one of its symptoms in particular: hypnogogic hallucinations. Many narcoleptics fall directly into the REM state when they sleep, and the result can be wild, vivid dreams. The missing-finger scene made total sense to me then, and I knew I had a narcoleptic detective.

JET: Can you give us a quick description of the story?

PAUL TREMBLAY: Mark Genevich is a South Boston PI and he has narcolepsy. He lives and works alone, his mother, Ellen, is an occasional caretaker/roomie. The scene described above (the woman with the missing fingers) is the first chapter to TLS. Mark wakes up to find the woman gone, and two nudie photos of the woman, Jennifer Times (singing contestant on an American Idol-type show), on his desk. Mark knows the missing fingers bit was hypnogogic hallucination, and he assumes the photos are part and parcel of a simple blackmail case. Nothing is simple, of course, and Mark struggles to figure out what his case even is, never mind solving it.

JET: In a YouTube video of you giving a talk at the Boston Public Library, you mention that the novel concerns issues of memory and identity. How so?

PAUL TREMBLAY: A major theme of the novel is how reality, memory, and identity are all tenuous states at best, and are generally in a constant state of flux. Because of his hallucinations, Mark has a difficult time discerning dream from reality. While asleep, Mark completes tasks without any memory of doing so (automatic behavior). Due to the intrusive nature of his symptoms, Mark’s short and long term memory is suspect. Even his own past is shadowy. Mark’s father died when he was a young boy, and the only memories he has of his father are tied into an odd recurring dream. Ultimately, everything changed for him after the horrific van accident that left his best friend dead and Mark damaged, or rearranged. There’s a good word: rearranged. Each day for Mark is a rearrangement of what he knows about himself and the world around him.

JET: It strikes me that other of the recent, provocatively literary and experimental detective novels I discussed in my last blog entry deal with questionable realities and unreliable narrators. Why this intriguing approach, when we think of detective novels being about people sorting tangible clues, gathering solid facts, and solving mysteries with clear logic?

PAUL TREMBLAY: I think you sort of answered your own question there, at the end. As you say, in a genre that celebrates those tangible clues leading to black-and-white conclusions or truths, to have some fun with ambiguity. I wanted Mark to be an unreliable narrator (he’s not unreliable on purpose though, he can’t help it!), the anti-private dick.

JET: I know you’re a funny guy, so I suspect there’s going to be humor in the mix in THE LITTLE SLEEP. Am I right, here? And how do you go about balancing humor and the dramatic elements?

PAUL TREMBLAY: I feel pressure to make some sort of joke here. A witty rejoined, perhaps? What did the banana say to the mango? (see parenthetical below)

There is humor in TLS (I hope). I wanted the sources of the humor to be the general absurdity of the situations and from Mark’s self-deprecating and sarcastic wit. I wanted the reader to laugh with Mark, never at him.

(Nothing. Bananas and mangos are fruits, not sentient beings. Duh).

JET: Your previous books include COMPOSITIONS FOR THE YOUNG AND OLD, a collection of horror and dark fantasy stories, and CITY PIER: ABOVE AND BELOW, a kind of collection or novella in four parts taking place in a weird far future or alternate reality. And your novella THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN, soon to be released through my own Necropolitan Press, is an extremely dark and disturbing story that – while again involving the unraveling of mysterious events – defies easy classification. THE LITTLE SLEEP seems a departure from the realms of speculative fiction. How do you approach, and what do you feel, about the issue of genre?

PAUL TREMBLAY: When I first started writing, I identified myself as a horror writer, like ‘horror writer’ was a badge, or a club membership card. It might sound a little goofy, but I know I became a better writer the day I decided I wasn’t a horror writer, but writer who on occasion wrote horror. Sounds like semantics, but to me it was an epiphany. The needs of the story have to come first and foremost. Instead of shoehorning ideas into a horror story, I let the stories be what I think they need to be. So writing out or in genre really isn’t much of an issue with me (I’m sure it drives my agent crazy, though!).

That said, I tend to enjoy reading stories that take genre (pick a genre, any genre) or genres, and mix and match, and manage to pull off something new, something unexpected. It’s what I’ve always admired about your Punktown stories, Jeff. And what I try to do with my own writing.

JET: Can you describe THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN a little? When you first talked with me about it at Readercon 2007 you had me hooked, and I knew I had to publish it.

PAUL TREMBLAY: Jeeze, I wish I could remember that pitch. Heh. I think I had you hooked when I mentioned that portions of the text had to be published in yellow. Of course, that idea grew into the reader’s assignment: the book opens with a request that the reader highlights the grey text words yellow throughout the novella. There’s a darn good reason for it, too. I promise.

Besides the highlighting shenanigans, Harlequin is my most disturbing, horrific (in the best way, of course) story. It’s an expansion/reimagining of the short story by the same title (4,200 words to 37,000 words).

Here’s the plot summary we came up with for the Necropolitan site:

Rudy has only been on the job as a train engineer for a few months. While at the helm of a commuter train headed to Boston, Massachusetts, it hits a harlequin clown, and in the chaotic aftermath, he witnesses the horrific and inexplicable actions of a group of people who were seemingly lying in wait for the accident. There are other accidents and as the group infiltrates his life (present and past), and as random global acts of violence and suffering seem to be connected, what Rudy believes about others and himself will be forever warped as he makes his final choice.

To me, the novella is about the horrible acts we all are capable of, and the acts that we all perpetrate, knowingly nor not.

JET: What are some of your favorite books? Who inspires you?

PAUL TREMBLAY: I take inspiration from everything I read. Steal from everyone! Though the writers who inspire me the most tend to be the ones who mix genres, who try something different every time out. Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Lethem, Stewart O’Nan, for example.

So many favorite books, so little time and bandwidth. All time favorites include Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House Five, Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves, and Aimee Bender’s The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. Some recent favorites: Laird Barron’s The Imago Sequence, Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth, Yoko Ogawa’s The Diving Pool, John Langan’s Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Nicole Kruass’s The History of Love, Nick Mamatas’s You Might Sleep, Stephen Graham Jones’s Demon Theory, Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch.

JET: I’m always curious about the writing habits of other authors. When do you do your writing; how do you fit that into your work as math teacher at a private school for boys?

PAUL TREMBLAY: My schedule with work and family tends to be pretty hectic. So my writing-time isn’t as regimented and disciplined as I would like. I steal a half hour here and there, whenever and where ever I can: night, morning, at work during a free period, etc. Although, now that my kids are past the daytime napping age, I tend to do most of my writing at night, after they’re in bed. I don’t sleep anymore. I need some sleep!

JET: Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what?

PAUL TREMBLAY: I tend not to listen to music while I write. Songs with lyrics distract me. When I do listen to music while writing, it’s an instrumental Magwai CD or Bela Bartok concertos.

Although, right now, I am writing, and I’m listening to Husker Du via Pandora.com.

I love music and do take quite a bit of inspiration from my favorite artists and songs. The title to my first short story collection (Compositions for the Young and Old) is the title of a Bob Mould song. I often go to song lyrics for ideas/inspiration if I find I’m stuck.

JET: I’ve got to say, with its bright yellow background and dizzy kaleidoscope (or Rorschach test?) of handguns, THE LITTLE SLEEP has one of the coolest, most graphically stylish covers I’ve seen in some time. Did you have any input in the cover design?

PAUL TREMBLAY: I really like the cover too. Pre-cover design my editor asked if I had any thoughts or suggestions to give. I did! I sent her a picture of a movie poster for Anatomy of a Murder. I talked about how I liked the title being prominent, the primary colors, the general vibe of the piece.

http://www.movieposter.com/poster/b70-13539/Anatomy_Of_A_Murder.html

I’m so fortunate that the designer, Lisa Fyfe, read the novel and liked it. She talked about her design process here: http://www.faceoutbooks.com/#13503

JET: So, are we going to see more adventures from Mark Genevich down the road?

PAUL TREMBLAY: Yes, I’m working on the edits to my follow-up (don’t say that dirty, dirty word ‘sequel’!) right now. No Sleep till Wonderland should be out and about next February!

JET: Congratulations on that, Paul, and on the LITLE SLEEP’s success. Thanks so much for your time!

PAUL TREMBLAY: Thank you, Jeff!

You can order THE LITTLE SLEEP at Amazon.com, here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805088490/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

…and THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN, here: http://www.necropolitan-press.com/biblio/Harlequin.php

…here’s Paul Tremblay’s official web site: http://www.paulgtremblay.com/paulgtremblay/

…his Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_G._Tremblay

…and his Boston Public Library talk and a few other videos can be viewed here: http://thelittlesleep.wordpress.com/vids/