Charlie Huston. Sleepless: A Novel. New York: Ballantine Books, 2010. 368 pages.
Charlie Huston’s latest novel is a thought-provoking mix of several strands: noirish mystery, police procedural, hard medical science fiction (think ANDROMEDA STRAIN), dystopian near-future Los Angeles, narco-thriller, zombie horror-fest, and philosophical love story. It’s a credit to the author that all of these genres not only work together, but actually complement each other.
The plot is simple: a newly-mutated disease is causing an epidemic of sleeplessness that takes about a year to kill, painfully disintegrating its victims’ minds. One of the two lead characters is Parker Haas, a young detective with a wife afflicted with the disease and an infant daughter who may be. The other is a “problem solver” who becomes involved, at first obliquely, with the detective’s investigation into possibly bootlegged supplies of a drug that can provide relief, but not a cure, for the disease.
The story is more complex. Both of the leads are acutely self-aware (perhaps sometimes straining the point of credulity, but once you’ve accepted you’re reading a dystopian noir sci-fi zombie story, the odd narc with a philosophy Ph.D. or hitman connoisseur with OCD isn’t asking much more in the way of suspension of disbelief), which adds a layer of meaning to the action, and the portrait of Parker, his sleepless wife Rose, and their infant daughter is realistic and nuanced. What makes it powerful is that Huston has used the core of the new-parent experience–sleeplessness, anxiety, disconnection from the outside world–as the model for the entire world. It’s an intriguing concept that will probably grab you–I read this book in a sitting-and-a-half over a sleepless night on a cross-country flight and the next day’s aftermath. You don’t have to be at that slightly dreamy stage of sleep deprivation to get into this book, but it probably helps you get the story on a more emotional level.
Huston does some interesting things with structure, too. There are three different kinds of narrative: Third person, based on Park’s experiences; first person, as told by Park; and first person, as told by the problem solver. There’s a little bit of a learning curve over the first few pages, but once you grok what’s going on, it works brilliantly.
SLEEPLESS works so well because Huston builds a realistic world. His insights into video gaming, as related through the in-book game Chasm Tide, a World of Warcraft-style immersive multi-player game, would make for interesting sociology, but they really help create a universe in which his plot–and his characters–make sense.
It’s a credit to Huston’s skill that he’s able to build a solid world out of such disparate elements, and it’s refreshing to read a writer who’s not afraid to take chances with his storytelling. This is the second Huston novel I’ve read, and it won’t be the last. Highly recommend.