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A review by timgibbons
Sleepless by Charlie Huston
5.0
The hidden secret about Huston's books is the core of humor he displays in them, something that adds a layer of humanity to otherwise dystopic topics like the travails of mass-murdering baseball players and the struggles of hunted vampire private eyes.
Sleepless isn't funny, though -- but might be all the stronger for that lack.
Set in what might be best described as a pre-apocalyptic world ("pre" in the sense that, sure, everything hasn't gone to hell yet, but just wait a week or two), the book presents both a new take on zombie fiction, a well developed mystery (albeit with a few loose threads) and a captivating exploration of humanity and how one retains it.
As with Huston's latest work (Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, which was one of my best reads of 2009), Sleepless presents a more complicated read than the Joe Pitts casebooks -- something that I take as the author's growth as a writer. Most of the characters are not exactly nice people, and yet are presented in such a fullness of personality that both their flaws and motivations are explicable. Sleepless' view of the world and how -- on both a global and more personal scale -- it will all come to ruin is all-too-easily imaginable.
At this point, I'd pretty much read anything Huston wrote, anyway, but Sleepless has me anticipating his next book even more.
Sleepless isn't funny, though -- but might be all the stronger for that lack.
Set in what might be best described as a pre-apocalyptic world ("pre" in the sense that, sure, everything hasn't gone to hell yet, but just wait a week or two), the book presents both a new take on zombie fiction, a well developed mystery (albeit with a few loose threads) and a captivating exploration of humanity and how one retains it.
As with Huston's latest work (Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, which was one of my best reads of 2009), Sleepless presents a more complicated read than the Joe Pitts casebooks -- something that I take as the author's growth as a writer. Most of the characters are not exactly nice people, and yet are presented in such a fullness of personality that both their flaws and motivations are explicable. Sleepless' view of the world and how -- on both a global and more personal scale -- it will all come to ruin is all-too-easily imaginable.
At this point, I'd pretty much read anything Huston wrote, anyway, but Sleepless has me anticipating his next book even more.