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Loading... The Song Is You: A Novel (original 2007; edition 2008)by Megan Abbott
Work InformationThe Song Is You by Megan Abbott (2007)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. No one writes about gams like Abbott. ( ) This was possibly the first noir novel I've ever read, and I enjoyed the setting. In particular, I was struck by the fast-paced and witty dialogue that I think is probably inherent to the genre, as I am a huge fan of both Gilmore Girls and Firefly for the same trait. I also enjoyed this story's unique perspective on the murder mystery. Usually, when reading a thriller, the main character is a detective or the victim's loved one, i.e. someone with motive to solve the case. Occasionally, of course, the story is instead told from the perspective of the criminal. This book, however, had the unique distinction of being told from the perspective of a Hollywood PR man, whose job it was to cover up incidents which might make the stars look bad. Because the missing girl was last seen with a couple of very big name actors, he did his part back in the day to cover up everything he knew about that night and keep the cops off the actors' tails. Now, about two years later, he's being pulled back in and wants to learn more about the case while keeping the rest of the world in the dark. I appreciated that chaotic neutral approach to crime-solving. I only had a few minor complaints about this one, the first being that I wasn't able to follow the characters' conversations in a couple of places. Mainly this is due to the 50's slang combined with the incorporation of characters who were real people in Hollywood at the time. I didn't know who Mickey Cohen was, for one, and in another conversation, it was established that one character had syphilis without ever actually saying it outright, and I could tell I was a page or two behind where I was supposed to be in figuring out what they were trying to say. This might not be a problem for true aficionados of that era or culture, but as someone who doesn't read this stuff often, I felt like the author may have misjudged what common knowledge readers might be coming to the book with. The other complaint I had was in regards to the protagonist, Hop. On a few occasions, he's described as acting uncharacteristically violent, and it's described as though he isn't in control of it but that it's simply happening. With that element put into a murder mystery, I assumed it would be important in the end, but it actually didn't really end up mattering at all, and I wasn't sure what the author was trying to get at by including it in the first place. no reviews | add a review
Awards
From Edgar® -nominated novelist Megan Abbott, who makes "devotees of Cain and Chandler fall down and beg for mercy" (The Hollywood Reporter), The Song Is You imagines a thrilling conclusion to the still unsolved since 1949 Black Dahlia murder case. On October 7, 1949, dark-haired starlet Jean Spangler kissed her five-year-old daughter good-bye and left for a night shoot at a Hollywood studio. "Wish me luck," she said as she crossed her fingers, winked, and walked away. She was never seen again. The only clues left behind: a purse with a broken strap found in a nearby park, a cryptic note, and rumors about mobster boyfriends and ill-fated romances with movie stars. Drawing on this true-life missing person case, Megan Abbott's The Song Is You tells the story of Gil "Hop" Hopkins, a smooth-talking Hollywood publicist whose career, despite his complicated personal life, is on the rise. It is 1951, two years after Jean Spangler's disappearance, and Hop finds himself unwillingly drawn into the still unsolved mystery by a friend of Jean who blames Hop for concealing details about Jean's whereabouts the night she vanished. Driven by guilt and fear of blackmail, Hop delves into the case himself, feverishly trying to stay one step ahead of an intrepid female reporter also chasing the story. Hop thought he'd seen it all, but what he uncovers both tantalizes and horrifies him as he plunges deeper and deeper into Hollywood's substratum in his attempt to uncover the truth. In the tradition of James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia and Joyce Carol Oates's Blonde, The Song Is You conjures a heady brew of truth and speculation, of fact and pulp fiction, taking the reader on a dark tour of Tinseltown, from movie studios, gala premieres, and posh nightclubs to gangsters, blackmailing B-girls, and the darkest secrets that lie behind Hollywood's luminous façade. At the center of it all is Hop, a man torn between cutthroat ambition and his own best intentions. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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