John R. Little (1) (1955–)

4.5 stars!

I think I love John Little! Seriously, I think I do. Plus, I love this cover. Go ahead, check it out. See that little 442 under the black and white picture? Now, I don't know about you, but when I hear 442 I think of this bad-ass Oldsmobile.

After reading this book though, I will probably think of this story whenever I hear 442 in the future.

Charlie is a photographer by trade. He is also a man with severe sleep deprivation problems. He's been to the sleep center where they cannot show more seem to find anything to help him. Since then, he has a new problem. He can't figure out why when he wakes from his 1-2 hours of sleep, it is always 4:42 a.m.

All of a sudden Charlie begins to get 5-6 hours of sleep a night. He doesn't know what to make of it. He also doesn't know what to make of the dreams he is now having. The dreams show accidents and deaths, over and over again. Finally, one of the dreams gives him the date of a car accident. Since Charlie is a photographer, he places himself at the spot where the accident happened, according to his dream, and he waits there. Something does happen, but not exactly what Charlie expected.

That's all I will say about the plot. If you are familiar with John Little's body of work, you already know that his novels and novellas pack a serious punch. He is very good at bringing a real humanity to his characters and this story is no exception. Charlie is exceptionally drawn, truly human and has many faults. However, you cannot help but feel for him as this story delves more into these black and white dreams.

I think that The Memory Tree is still my favorite Little book, but this one comes in at second place, (of what I have read of his work so far). This story, ultimately (in my mind), is a tragedy. It also carries a life lesson within. It's up to the reader to find it. I highly recommend this first class novella to any fans of dark fiction. You won't be disappointed. show less

This book... from the moment I picked it up, I very nearly couldn't put it down. Little's narrative has an eerie inertia, and although the tragedies and the darkness at the heart of the book make it something of a horror novel, there's also a lightness to it--as if, after everything, there's hope for innocence and childhood and goodness, even where evidence of the same seems to be lacking.

In truth, I'm not sure how to speak of this book without giving things away. The subject matter is dark, show more and as speculative fiction goes, the horror is frighteningly everyday, made of what we see on the news and wish weren't true. But Little's plotting is masterful, and the twists here are impressive, more often than not coming out of the blue and with a bit of half-tuned heartbreak.

All in all, this is a dark read, but it's also kind of wonderful. It's not for children, and not for readers who'll want to turn away from difficult subjects... but it is worthwhile, and I'll remember it.

I'll also be looking for any of Little's other writing. show less

I feel like the other reviewers were reading a different book than I was. Or maybe they just are more adept at suspending disbelief than I am. (But usually I'm pretty good at that, when the occasion warrants, but I didn't find this story compelling enough to make that effort.) I'm not going to lie, I abandoned this book after 70 pages. Because what the heck was the point of those disconnected and utterly incomprehensible scenes? For me it started with the man on the lake who abandons the son show more in the water next to him to rescue the other son and old woman who were being attacked by fierce Jack Russell Terriers! (WHAT?!) I know terriers are aggressive, and any dog can cause serious bodily harm, even death, when vicious, but Jack Russell Terriers, really? That immediately put me out of the story, and that was the prologue. But then those characters, whose actions, and situations were completely ridiculous, didn't get mentioned again in the first 70 pages, so I tried to focus on the immediate pages. Nope. No can do. Twin girls whose father shoots their cheating mother run away from home and are able to get hotel rooms (yeah, I'm aware of how she "bartered" and I suppose it could happen), but they also rented an apartment and got jobs?? And how did they manage to do this and escape the notice of Child Protective Services? CPS would have been knocking on their door and scooping them up as their father was getting arrested. And the part about them not caring why their father killed their mother, okay... Then they surreptitiously read one another's journals, but suddenly as they are running away, they (because of space constraints in their backpacks?) decide to share a journal? Nothing about them made sense or made me compelled to care about them or their psychotic behavior (giving her sister's boyfriend a hand-job at the age of 13, and suggesting he force himself on her sister the next time they are together? Wow.) Then we meet the light-fingered magician wanna-be who almost literally saws his assistant in half with a chainsaw. Yeah. I'm done. Sorry, but I couldn't spend any more time on this book. All I ask for from a book is that it make me feel something. And I love a good thriller, and even psychotic characters, as long they are at least somewhat believable. Unfortunately, all this book was making me feel was angry. I couldn't stand the characters, I couldn't suspend my disbelief to the level necessary to move forward with the story. I'm giving it stars because the author made the effort to finish a manuscript and got it published. Maybe if I could have held on I would have enjoyed that ending that other reviewers so raved about. But I just couldn't do it. Not when I have a stack of books waiting to be read. show less

This book is a Russian nesting doll of a novel. We open one story and learn of another, then another, all dealing with lives torn apart by an unimaginable horror. All of this is framed in a pitch perfect time travel structure utilized to maximum effect.

Memories are like branches of a tree, sprouting off the events and people of our life. Sometimes our memories are accurate, sometimes not. Sometimes they need the perspective that comes from years to see how they fit in with the bigger show more structure of our lives. Until that perspective comes, we only see the branches and have no real understanding. I am not exaggerating when I say that when you finish the last page of this novel, when you finally are able to step back see the whole story you will be devastated and filled with admiration for this gifted novelist who has tackled one of the most difficult subjects imaginable. show less