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The Song Is You
From Edgar Award-nominated novelist Megan Abbott, who makes devotees of Cain and Chandler fall down and beg for mercy (The Hollywood Reporter), comes an imaginative new novel about the mysterious murder of an actress that remains unsolved today.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 2, 2007
About the author
Megan Abbott
64 books6,022 followersMegan Abbott is the Edgar®-winning author of the novels Die a Little, Queenpin, The Song Is You, Bury Me Deep, The End of Everything, Dare Me, The Fever, You Will Know Me and Give Me Your Hand.
Abbott is co-showrunner, writer and executive producer of DARE ME, the TV show adapated from her novel. She was also a staff writer on HBO's THE DEUCE. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan and received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She has taught at NYU, SUNY and the New School University and has served as the John Grisham Writer in Residence at The University of Mississippi.
She is also the author of a nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, and the editor of A Hell of a Woman, an anthology of female crime fiction. She is currently developing two of her novels, Dare Me and The Fever, for television.
Abbott is co-showrunner, writer and executive producer of DARE ME, the TV show adapated from her novel. She was also a staff writer on HBO's THE DEUCE. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan and received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She has taught at NYU, SUNY and the New School University and has served as the John Grisham Writer in Residence at The University of Mississippi.
She is also the author of a nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, and the editor of A Hell of a Woman, an anthology of female crime fiction. She is currently developing two of her novels, Dare Me and The Fever, for television.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 206 reviews
April 3, 2012
Noir so grim and pungent that you can feel the seediness sticking to your eyes, and taste its residue in the back of your throat. A wicked distillation of good scotch, hot musk and blood-tinged sexual depravity, served in a filthy glass rimmed with lies, secrets and ruthless self-interest. And while I haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading the master of tinsel town noir, James Ellroy, I have to imagine he would be proud of this saucy bag of nasty conjured up by Ms. Abbot.
PLOT SUMMARY:
Based on the real life, unsolved disappearance of Hollywood starlet Jean Spangler, Abbott creates a fictional, but very credible, “here’s what really happened” mystery, using the scant historical facts as a jumping off point. Two years after the Spangler disappearance, Gil “Hop” Hopkins, a smooth-talking, morally deficient spin doctor/fixer for a large movie studio, finds himself dragged into the still unsolved mystery. Hop’s job is to make embarrassing events "go away" before they can cast an unfavorable light on the studio, and he's very good at it.
A friend of Spangler accuses Hop of helping to cover up certain aspects of the disappearance for the studio, an accusation not far away from the bullseye. Now Hop’s past is coming back to bite him and he has to retrace the night Spangler disappeared and keep a hungry young reporter from uncovering the truth that could cost Hops his job, his life, and what’s left of his soul.
THOUGHTS, QUOTES AND GUSH:
First, if you like noir, especially noir inhabiting the smutty, iniquitous underbelly of 1950’s Hollywood, you should read this…NOW.
While there are plenty of reasons to love about this novel, for me, it begins and ends with the prose. Ms. Abbot can flat out lay it down, and I can open the book at random and likely find some wonderful nugget of crisp, smoky dialogue that sounds like ice clinking against a tumbler of whiskey. How do you not get weak in the knees from golden syrup like this:
But there is so much more here than just the gorgeousness of a well-turned phrase. Abbot’s tale is sauteed in pain, loss and regret. From the defensive coldness and buried memories leftover from dark beginnings, to jagged shards of broken lives and futures, smashed against emotional walls bricked up around hearts. Even Hop, for all of his learned callousness, can never escape the dysfunctional battleground of his failing marriage to his wife, Midge, whom he both loves and hates in equal measure.
Typical of a lot of noir, this story also explores some very dark (in this case pitch-black) territory. The central plot thread includes encounters of violent, sexual perversity involving Hollywood's elite, acting out a form of droit du seigneur in the dank, retched corners of the City of Angels. The epicenter of these events is a pseudo-mythical palace of dark delights known as the Red Lily:
4.5 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
PLOT SUMMARY:
Based on the real life, unsolved disappearance of Hollywood starlet Jean Spangler, Abbott creates a fictional, but very credible, “here’s what really happened” mystery, using the scant historical facts as a jumping off point. Two years after the Spangler disappearance, Gil “Hop” Hopkins, a smooth-talking, morally deficient spin doctor/fixer for a large movie studio, finds himself dragged into the still unsolved mystery. Hop’s job is to make embarrassing events "go away" before they can cast an unfavorable light on the studio, and he's very good at it.
A friend of Spangler accuses Hop of helping to cover up certain aspects of the disappearance for the studio, an accusation not far away from the bullseye. Now Hop’s past is coming back to bite him and he has to retrace the night Spangler disappeared and keep a hungry young reporter from uncovering the truth that could cost Hops his job, his life, and what’s left of his soul.
THOUGHTS, QUOTES AND GUSH:
First, if you like noir, especially noir inhabiting the smutty, iniquitous underbelly of 1950’s Hollywood, you should read this…NOW.
While there are plenty of reasons to love about this novel, for me, it begins and ends with the prose. Ms. Abbot can flat out lay it down, and I can open the book at random and likely find some wonderful nugget of crisp, smoky dialogue that sounds like ice clinking against a tumbler of whiskey. How do you not get weak in the knees from golden syrup like this:
By round five, the cherries-in-snow lusciousness of Miss Barbara Payton practically shimmered with I’m-easy-appeal. Thankfully, with drinks, she grew not more soulful but more filthy, like a slutty baton twirler, every red-blooded American man’s deepest dream.Everywhere you turn in this book, there is dialogue and exposition that brings to mind the best qualities of crime noir. “It had been late…and they’d racked up quite a tab at the Eight Ball, a sweat-on-the-walls roadhouse in a dark stretch of nowhere just east of civilization.”
But there is so much more here than just the gorgeousness of a well-turned phrase. Abbot’s tale is sauteed in pain, loss and regret. From the defensive coldness and buried memories leftover from dark beginnings, to jagged shards of broken lives and futures, smashed against emotional walls bricked up around hearts. Even Hop, for all of his learned callousness, can never escape the dysfunctional battleground of his failing marriage to his wife, Midge, whom he both loves and hates in equal measure.
And Midge, well…she may have come from a small Ohio town, but there was nary a hint of Main Street, county fairs, pearls-to-church-on-Sunday about her. By the time he met her, she was a premium, hard-cut Hollywood diamond, gleaming and icy with a hundred sharp edges and a hundred mirrored faces.Throughout the story we are privy to a series of emotional contradictions that make up Hop’s relationship with Midge. From angst and resentment, “He guessed it wasn’t Midge who had started it all, but it sure felt that way. Her love like a slug in your drink” to the deep-buried, unacknowledged love, “And she laughed and it was the first time he’d heard her laugh in a century of more and it was so fizzy and delicious, a hot toddy” these nuances and depths make this novel special.
Typical of a lot of noir, this story also explores some very dark (in this case pitch-black) territory. The central plot thread includes encounters of violent, sexual perversity involving Hollywood's elite, acting out a form of droit du seigneur in the dank, retched corners of the City of Angels. The epicenter of these events is a pseudo-mythical palace of dark delights known as the Red Lily:
In all Hop’s experience, which involved accompanying stars and execs to Chinatown whorehouses, to dark parking lots, alleys and motels off Central Avenue, to one Mexican hothouse that trotted out prime San Quentin tail, he’d never been to the Red Lily, never even heard it mentioned more than a handful of times and always in choked whispers late into lost nights, nights when the warm glow of eleven p.m. had turned into something quaking and nasty by twoAgain, this woman can write her ass off. This is one of those books you melt into from the very first page. From the memorable characters, to the slick, silky dialogue, to the cynical, “we’re all damaged goods” attitude of the narrator, this is a great read.
…
There were tales of rough orgies, of Hollywood royalty throbbing violently against world-class dock trash, floaters from far-ways ports with rough faces and pliant bodies…Dark and ancient folk who’d moved from port to port for centuries, or so it seemed, carrying a taste for sexual devolution. Their eyes held secrets back to Babylon.
4.5 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
August 5, 2016
Dan has already written about our encounter with Megan Abbott at Bouchercon which resulted in her signing his copy of this book as Megan ‘The Bitch’ Abbott. I was unfamiliar with her at the time, but Dan told me that her Queenpin was very good, and I was impressed what she had to say on a panel I watched the next day so I went and bought my own copy of The Song is You. While she was signing it for me, I told Miss Abbott that I’d been there the day before during the The Bitch signing incident, but that I thought she seemed like a very pleasant person. That’s why my copy has her note “+ And I’m very nice!!”.
Aside from being very nice and not a bitch at all, Megan Abbott is also a helluva a writer judging from this book. Using the true life 1949 disappearance of a bit actress named Jean Spangler in Hollywood, Abbott spins the dark tale of a former reporter turned sleazy slick-talking public relations fixer named Gil ‘Hop’ Hopkins. Hop had done some partying with Jean and a girlfriend of hers the night she disappeared, and the last he saw of Jean, she was with a couple big time actors with a reputation for being kinky. After Jean vanished, Hop took charge of covering up the actors’ involvement and is rewarded with a plum job covering up the misdeeds of Hollywood types.
A few years later, Jean’s friend shows up and accuses Hop of orchestrating a cover-up for Jean’s murder. Hop tries to justify his actions by telling himself that he thought he was just keeping the movie stars’ names out of the papers; he didn’t actually think they were involved. After his conscience gets the better of him during a drunken encounter with a female reporter, Hop has to scramble around to put a new coat of pain on the white wash he did as he also confronts some uncomfortable questions about what kind of person he is.
Abbot writes like a saner and more lucid James Ellroy with a healthy pinch of Jim Thompson thrown in. With it’s terrific dialogue and morally compromised characters, this was an excellent piece of noir fiction. There’s a rhythm to this that made it a real pleasure to read and makes me want to get another book by her in the very near future.
Aside from being very nice and not a bitch at all, Megan Abbott is also a helluva a writer judging from this book. Using the true life 1949 disappearance of a bit actress named Jean Spangler in Hollywood, Abbott spins the dark tale of a former reporter turned sleazy slick-talking public relations fixer named Gil ‘Hop’ Hopkins. Hop had done some partying with Jean and a girlfriend of hers the night she disappeared, and the last he saw of Jean, she was with a couple big time actors with a reputation for being kinky. After Jean vanished, Hop took charge of covering up the actors’ involvement and is rewarded with a plum job covering up the misdeeds of Hollywood types.
A few years later, Jean’s friend shows up and accuses Hop of orchestrating a cover-up for Jean’s murder. Hop tries to justify his actions by telling himself that he thought he was just keeping the movie stars’ names out of the papers; he didn’t actually think they were involved. After his conscience gets the better of him during a drunken encounter with a female reporter, Hop has to scramble around to put a new coat of pain on the white wash he did as he also confronts some uncomfortable questions about what kind of person he is.
Abbot writes like a saner and more lucid James Ellroy with a healthy pinch of Jim Thompson thrown in. With it’s terrific dialogue and morally compromised characters, this was an excellent piece of noir fiction. There’s a rhythm to this that made it a real pleasure to read and makes me want to get another book by her in the very near future.
June 27, 2021
The Song is You is the second novel by Megan Abbott and the second that the author published in 2007. Like Queenpin, this lurid tale careens into the reader with its collar unbuttoned and the aroma of rye mixed with Lucky Strikes on its breath, but it's a more ambitious effort, taking place in a specific place and time--Hollywood at the dawn of television-and mingles fictional characters with the real Tinseltown players of the day. It's a desolate, occasionally repulsive depiction of Los Angeles, where everything is for sale and depravity knows no bounds, but through electric prose and sharp dialogue, builds into an invigorating and haunting mystery.
After some convoluted and unnecessary prologue, the story begins in September 1951 with Warner Bros. publicity man Gil Hopkins. An ex-reporter for the movie magazine Cinestar, in his new job, Gil describes himself as a fireman. "I put out fires. I start fires. A little of both." Johnny on the Spot with a quip, he's the sort of fixer heavily in demand in industry towns, spinning news of arrests, break-ups and embarrassing exposures into publicity for the powers-that-be. His soon-to-be ex-wife Midge has abandoned their marriage of three hateful years and moved in with Hop's best friend, a publicity agent named Jerry Schuyler he worked with in the war.
Hop receives a visit from a chorus girl named Iolene Harper. The two met in Hop's journo days and were among the last people to see Iolene's friend, dark-eyed starlet Jean Spangler, before she disappeared two years ago. Drinking the night away at a roadhouse, the trio were joined by song and dance team Marv Sutton and Gene Merrel, their press agent Bix Noonan and a burlesque performer who gave Hop the name "Miss Hotcha." Hop and Iolene knew that Sutton & Merrel had a rep for roughing up women, but were unable to talk Jean out of partying with them. Hop took Miss Hotcha home for a night cap and Iolene accompanied Jean and the dancing derelicts to a sleaze pit called the Red Lily.
A search of Griffith Park turned up Jean's purse, with a broken handle and a cryptic note inside which read: Kirk, can't wait any longer, going to see Doctor Scott. It will work out best this way while mother is away. Her body was never found. Several eyewitnesses told the press that they saw Jean at a restaurant that night with an unidentified tall man. Sutton & Merrel were kept out of it and Iolene correctly assumes that Hop's promotion had something to do with that. She confesses to Hop that she tried to get Jean to leave the Red Lily with her that night, but the starlet refused, and Iolene took a ride home from the press agent while his clients did God knows what to Jean.
He thought for a long thirty seconds about his part in the drama. He'd kept his mouth shut. And lied to a few cops. Really, who doesn't lie to cops? What else are cops for? All he did was make sure a few names never found their way into the papers or to the police. And to take care of that, sure, he made the girl's name disappear from the studio logs just to be safe. And then dropped a few hints to the cops and maybe a reporter that the girl was known to keep company with some less-than-reputable boys about town. The purse with the broken strap in Griffith Park only helped, gave more likely reasons for the girl to fade to black.
Nagged by his conscience, Hop dives into the abyss and starts rubbing shoulders with all manner of sorted characters who might hold a piece to the puzzle of Jean Spangler's disappearance. A reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner who dropped the story mentions that Davy Ogul, one of gangster Mickey Cohen's boys, was rumored to be Jean's boyfriend; Ogul disappeared shortly after Jean did. A botched abortion seemed to be the most likely fate of the missing starlet and is the reason the press dropped the story. Hop visits the Examiner where the reporter who inherited it--a spitfire named Frannie Adair--doesn't have anything for Hop either. Meanwhile, Iolene disappears.
Hop gets soused and pays a visit to his friend Jerry at two o'clock in the morning to talk things over. He remembers too late that his wife Midge is living there and how easily she gets under his skin. Feeling even lower after the encounter, Hop drops by Frannie Adair's bungalow and confesses to the reporter that he saw Jean Spangler the night she disappeared and that Sutton & Merrel might have been involved in her disappearance. Realizing the damage he's done when he sobers up, Hop notifies Sutton & Merrel's manager that a reporter might start asking questions about Jean Spangler. Hop is troubled by how quickly the manager seemed to recognize the name and knew what action to take.
Hop begins to tail Frannie. At the studio, she learns that Jean Spangler actually was working for Warner Bros. when she vanished. Hop makes sure Jean's glossies disappear from the studio files but is unable to remember enough about his date that evening, "Miss Hotcha," to find her and quiet her. Frannie confronts Hop and guesses that he's up to his tricks, making everyone who might have seen Jean Spangler that night unavailable for comment. Haunted by Jean Spangler and filled with remorse, Hop locates the Red Lily, where a thirteen year old named Lemon Drop tells him it took two men two hours to clean up the blood in the room after Marv Sutton was done with Jean.
He'd seen his fair share of lunatics in his years in Hollywood: hysterical actresses who liked to smash windows with their bare hands, gloomy-faced actors who played with loaded pistols at parties and then retired to darkened rooms for days or weeks at a time. Glamour girls who pulled their dresses over their heads in public. The elegant leading man who stole teacups from restaurants, and another, same sort, who asked his lovers to throw tennis balls between his legs from across the room. Hop was rarely surprised these days. But this ... this disordered man. And everything so close, right before his eyes.
Hop's guilty conscience spirals him closer to a date with Jean Spangler. Shadowing Frannie Adair, he is led to the familiar apartment of "Miss Hotcha," who turns out to be Hop is later able to get the woman to spill that Jean and Iolene were mixed up in a dirty picture and blackmail racket sponsored by Jean's boyfriend Davy Ogul. She directs Hop to Iolene's hideaway, where he discovers and an empty file cabinet with a tab marked "Dr. Stillman." Learning that the good doctor has disappeared, Hop breaks into the office for clues and finds one that connects Jean's disappearance to someone who's been right in front of him the entire time.
The Song is You has a title that I loved and ten opening pages that I did not. Rather than introduce Hop--who you'd guess correctly is the main character--Abbott begins the story with her victim, muddying the waters of a story that's already an oily puddle. It's a flaw in what is otherwise a beguiling mystery soaked with tabloid grandeur. In addition to prose that fluctuates between being breezy and punchy, and dialogue that feels clipped authentically to the times and to the characters, I was impressed by how dexterously Abbott fit her fictional characters within the world of real A-list and B-list movie stars, as well as hoodlums and social stigmas of the day, back alley abortion being key. Her research is top notch and her apparent legal clearances with the names of real stars perplexed me, much like a good magician's act.
This is not a book for the faint of heart, not because of graphic violence or sex, but a palpable level of psychic violence that hovers over it. This Los Angeles is a primeval swamp, with ground that opens up and swallows those who aren't watching their step. That might be repellent to some readers and it frequently is, but what Abbott does so well is pry open the closet of 1950s Hollywood and examines the skeletons still hanging there. Her missing persons mystery piqued by curiosity and threw me forward into the climax, which was unexpected, vivid and haunted me, sort of like hearing one of those skeletons in the closet move when I closed the door. Fans of James Ellroy should be thrilled.
After some convoluted and unnecessary prologue, the story begins in September 1951 with Warner Bros. publicity man Gil Hopkins. An ex-reporter for the movie magazine Cinestar, in his new job, Gil describes himself as a fireman. "I put out fires. I start fires. A little of both." Johnny on the Spot with a quip, he's the sort of fixer heavily in demand in industry towns, spinning news of arrests, break-ups and embarrassing exposures into publicity for the powers-that-be. His soon-to-be ex-wife Midge has abandoned their marriage of three hateful years and moved in with Hop's best friend, a publicity agent named Jerry Schuyler he worked with in the war.
Hop receives a visit from a chorus girl named Iolene Harper. The two met in Hop's journo days and were among the last people to see Iolene's friend, dark-eyed starlet Jean Spangler, before she disappeared two years ago. Drinking the night away at a roadhouse, the trio were joined by song and dance team Marv Sutton and Gene Merrel, their press agent Bix Noonan and a burlesque performer who gave Hop the name "Miss Hotcha." Hop and Iolene knew that Sutton & Merrel had a rep for roughing up women, but were unable to talk Jean out of partying with them. Hop took Miss Hotcha home for a night cap and Iolene accompanied Jean and the dancing derelicts to a sleaze pit called the Red Lily.
A search of Griffith Park turned up Jean's purse, with a broken handle and a cryptic note inside which read: Kirk, can't wait any longer, going to see Doctor Scott. It will work out best this way while mother is away. Her body was never found. Several eyewitnesses told the press that they saw Jean at a restaurant that night with an unidentified tall man. Sutton & Merrel were kept out of it and Iolene correctly assumes that Hop's promotion had something to do with that. She confesses to Hop that she tried to get Jean to leave the Red Lily with her that night, but the starlet refused, and Iolene took a ride home from the press agent while his clients did God knows what to Jean.
He thought for a long thirty seconds about his part in the drama. He'd kept his mouth shut. And lied to a few cops. Really, who doesn't lie to cops? What else are cops for? All he did was make sure a few names never found their way into the papers or to the police. And to take care of that, sure, he made the girl's name disappear from the studio logs just to be safe. And then dropped a few hints to the cops and maybe a reporter that the girl was known to keep company with some less-than-reputable boys about town. The purse with the broken strap in Griffith Park only helped, gave more likely reasons for the girl to fade to black.
Nagged by his conscience, Hop dives into the abyss and starts rubbing shoulders with all manner of sorted characters who might hold a piece to the puzzle of Jean Spangler's disappearance. A reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner who dropped the story mentions that Davy Ogul, one of gangster Mickey Cohen's boys, was rumored to be Jean's boyfriend; Ogul disappeared shortly after Jean did. A botched abortion seemed to be the most likely fate of the missing starlet and is the reason the press dropped the story. Hop visits the Examiner where the reporter who inherited it--a spitfire named Frannie Adair--doesn't have anything for Hop either. Meanwhile, Iolene disappears.
Hop gets soused and pays a visit to his friend Jerry at two o'clock in the morning to talk things over. He remembers too late that his wife Midge is living there and how easily she gets under his skin. Feeling even lower after the encounter, Hop drops by Frannie Adair's bungalow and confesses to the reporter that he saw Jean Spangler the night she disappeared and that Sutton & Merrel might have been involved in her disappearance. Realizing the damage he's done when he sobers up, Hop notifies Sutton & Merrel's manager that a reporter might start asking questions about Jean Spangler. Hop is troubled by how quickly the manager seemed to recognize the name and knew what action to take.
Hop begins to tail Frannie. At the studio, she learns that Jean Spangler actually was working for Warner Bros. when she vanished. Hop makes sure Jean's glossies disappear from the studio files but is unable to remember enough about his date that evening, "Miss Hotcha," to find her and quiet her. Frannie confronts Hop and guesses that he's up to his tricks, making everyone who might have seen Jean Spangler that night unavailable for comment. Haunted by Jean Spangler and filled with remorse, Hop locates the Red Lily, where a thirteen year old named Lemon Drop tells him it took two men two hours to clean up the blood in the room after Marv Sutton was done with Jean.
He'd seen his fair share of lunatics in his years in Hollywood: hysterical actresses who liked to smash windows with their bare hands, gloomy-faced actors who played with loaded pistols at parties and then retired to darkened rooms for days or weeks at a time. Glamour girls who pulled their dresses over their heads in public. The elegant leading man who stole teacups from restaurants, and another, same sort, who asked his lovers to throw tennis balls between his legs from across the room. Hop was rarely surprised these days. But this ... this disordered man. And everything so close, right before his eyes.
Hop's guilty conscience spirals him closer to a date with Jean Spangler. Shadowing Frannie Adair, he is led to the familiar apartment of "Miss Hotcha," who turns out to be Hop is later able to get the woman to spill that Jean and Iolene were mixed up in a dirty picture and blackmail racket sponsored by Jean's boyfriend Davy Ogul. She directs Hop to Iolene's hideaway, where he discovers and an empty file cabinet with a tab marked "Dr. Stillman." Learning that the good doctor has disappeared, Hop breaks into the office for clues and finds one that connects Jean's disappearance to someone who's been right in front of him the entire time.
The Song is You has a title that I loved and ten opening pages that I did not. Rather than introduce Hop--who you'd guess correctly is the main character--Abbott begins the story with her victim, muddying the waters of a story that's already an oily puddle. It's a flaw in what is otherwise a beguiling mystery soaked with tabloid grandeur. In addition to prose that fluctuates between being breezy and punchy, and dialogue that feels clipped authentically to the times and to the characters, I was impressed by how dexterously Abbott fit her fictional characters within the world of real A-list and B-list movie stars, as well as hoodlums and social stigmas of the day, back alley abortion being key. Her research is top notch and her apparent legal clearances with the names of real stars perplexed me, much like a good magician's act.
This is not a book for the faint of heart, not because of graphic violence or sex, but a palpable level of psychic violence that hovers over it. This Los Angeles is a primeval swamp, with ground that opens up and swallows those who aren't watching their step. That might be repellent to some readers and it frequently is, but what Abbott does so well is pry open the closet of 1950s Hollywood and examines the skeletons still hanging there. Her missing persons mystery piqued by curiosity and threw me forward into the climax, which was unexpected, vivid and haunted me, sort of like hearing one of those skeletons in the closet move when I closed the door. Fans of James Ellroy should be thrilled.
September 23, 2011
In October, 1949, actress Jean Spangler disappeared, leaving behind a daughter in the care of her cousin, a broken-strapped purse, and lots of dark rumors. Two years later, PR man Gil "Hop" Hopkins tries to piece together what happened to the rising star. Can Hop navigate the web of sex, drugs, and blackmail and find her killer or killers and still retain his sanity?
Kemper and I met Megan Abbott at BoucherCon 2011. Aside from a funny series of events that led to her signing my copy of this book Megan "The Bitch" Abbott, the main thing I remember from he experience was Kemper saying "That's Megan Abbott? She's tiny!" Tiny she may be but Megan Abbott can noir it up with the big dogs any old day of the week.
The Song Is You is a bleak tale of murder, sex, drugs, and blackmail behind the scenes of the motion picture industry of the early 50's. Hop is as in dark about Jean Spangler's true fate as the reader for most of the book. For a slim 250-ish pages, the plot is surprisingly intricate with more than its share of twists and turns. I had no idea what I was getting into when I first cracked it open.
Gil "Hop" Hopkins is a pretty good noir lead. He's a womanizing PR man for a film studio, a former reporter who still has a knack for ferreting out information. He's far from a golden boy and his slide toward madness as he tries to figure out what happened after Jean Spangler disappeared was very believable. The supporting cast is just as good. Iolene, Jean's best friend, Franny, the reporter gunning for a story, and Jerry, Hop's best friend and the man his wife Midge left him for. The apparent villains of the piece, a musical comedy duo, seem like degenerate bastards but still quite believable.
As I mentioned before, the twists kept on coming. I have to confess that I quit trying to figure out what happened about halfway through and just leaned back and let Megan Abbott drag me through the muck of Hollywood along with Hop. The ending was pretty satisfying. Even though it was a pretty slim book, I had the same worn out feeling I had after reading The Black Dahlia by the time it was over.
It's an easy four star read for noir fans. I'm not sure if I like it more than the other Megan Abbott book I've read, Queenpin, or not. It's damn sure worth a read, though.
Kemper and I met Megan Abbott at BoucherCon 2011. Aside from a funny series of events that led to her signing my copy of this book Megan "The Bitch" Abbott, the main thing I remember from he experience was Kemper saying "That's Megan Abbott? She's tiny!" Tiny she may be but Megan Abbott can noir it up with the big dogs any old day of the week.
The Song Is You is a bleak tale of murder, sex, drugs, and blackmail behind the scenes of the motion picture industry of the early 50's. Hop is as in dark about Jean Spangler's true fate as the reader for most of the book. For a slim 250-ish pages, the plot is surprisingly intricate with more than its share of twists and turns. I had no idea what I was getting into when I first cracked it open.
Gil "Hop" Hopkins is a pretty good noir lead. He's a womanizing PR man for a film studio, a former reporter who still has a knack for ferreting out information. He's far from a golden boy and his slide toward madness as he tries to figure out what happened after Jean Spangler disappeared was very believable. The supporting cast is just as good. Iolene, Jean's best friend, Franny, the reporter gunning for a story, and Jerry, Hop's best friend and the man his wife Midge left him for. The apparent villains of the piece, a musical comedy duo, seem like degenerate bastards but still quite believable.
As I mentioned before, the twists kept on coming. I have to confess that I quit trying to figure out what happened about halfway through and just leaned back and let Megan Abbott drag me through the muck of Hollywood along with Hop. The ending was pretty satisfying. Even though it was a pretty slim book, I had the same worn out feeling I had after reading The Black Dahlia by the time it was over.
It's an easy four star read for noir fans. I'm not sure if I like it more than the other Megan Abbott book I've read, Queenpin, or not. It's damn sure worth a read, though.
August 3, 2016
Meet
Gil "Hop"Hopkins
— press man and all around fixer for
"the nastiest, blackest-hearted team there is: Hollywood."
It was by chance (also known as the library wait list) that I landed myself back in late-40s tinsel town so soon after finishing The Black Dahlia . And the similarities don't end with location alone; as Hop chases down loose ends even the boys down at the local Hearst-owned rag office thought this sordid tale "might be Daughter of Black Dahlia." But, for Megan Abbott , I'd go almost anywhere.
The scene is set well, grime covered with layers of pancake makeup and the men upstairs running interference. For Hop, the search for some semblance of truth has tapped into something (Guilt? A conscience?) he thought he'd left behind long ago.
Abbott does this breed of noir oh so well, but there was a certain feeling of intertwined closeness with the character, Hop in this case, that was lacking in comparison to the other two of hers ( Dare Me , and Queenpin ) I've read. I could speculate as to the gendered nature of this disconnect, but there are so many variables in the mix. In the end, my newfound love for Megan Abbott has landed her on a list of authors who I can only judge relative to their own greatness. So take this as three Megan Abbott-adjusted stars.
It was by chance (also known as the library wait list) that I landed myself back in late-40s tinsel town so soon after finishing The Black Dahlia . And the similarities don't end with location alone; as Hop chases down loose ends even the boys down at the local Hearst-owned rag office thought this sordid tale "might be Daughter of Black Dahlia." But, for Megan Abbott , I'd go almost anywhere.
The scene is set well, grime covered with layers of pancake makeup and the men upstairs running interference. For Hop, the search for some semblance of truth has tapped into something (Guilt? A conscience?) he thought he'd left behind long ago.
"Beneath the hard stare, the pancake, the waxy coat of lipstick, beneath that…hell, Hop had long ago stopped looking beneath that. Chances were too great that the underneath was worse."And it is always so much worse…
Abbott does this breed of noir oh so well, but there was a certain feeling of intertwined closeness with the character, Hop in this case, that was lacking in comparison to the other two of hers ( Dare Me , and Queenpin ) I've read. I could speculate as to the gendered nature of this disconnect, but there are so many variables in the mix. In the end, my newfound love for Megan Abbott has landed her on a list of authors who I can only judge relative to their own greatness. So take this as three Megan Abbott-adjusted stars.
August 27, 2011
Megan Abbott has written another engrossing novel based loosely on actual historical events. On October 7, 1949, Jean Spangler, a dancer and small-time actress, let her home in L.A., allegedly to see her ex-husband to discuss child support payments for Spangler's two-year-old daughter. Spangler disappeared that night and was never seen again. An intensive investigation led to considerable speculation about what might have become of her. Her purse was recovered two nights later, along with a cryptic note, but the mystery remains unsolved and over fifty years later, the case remains open.
Using both historical and fictional characters, Abbott, a film scholar, uses the Spangler case as an opportunity to provide readers a glimpse into the sordid underbelly of Hollywood in the early Fifties. The main protagonist is Gil "Hop" Hopkins, an entertainment reporter who later becomes a studio publicity hack.
In Abbott's recreation of the story, Hopkins was partying with Spangler and a few other people on the night the actress disappeared. But he left the party early and does not know what might have happened to Spangler. Two years after the fact, Hopkins is approached by another person who was in the party that night, and the encounter sets Hopkins on a mission to discover the truth. The task nearly consumes him and will certainly keep a reader glued to the book, fascinated both by Abbott's description of the ugly realities that lay behind the Tinsel town glitter and by Gil Hopkin's quest to uncover the mystery of the missing starlet.
Using both historical and fictional characters, Abbott, a film scholar, uses the Spangler case as an opportunity to provide readers a glimpse into the sordid underbelly of Hollywood in the early Fifties. The main protagonist is Gil "Hop" Hopkins, an entertainment reporter who later becomes a studio publicity hack.
In Abbott's recreation of the story, Hopkins was partying with Spangler and a few other people on the night the actress disappeared. But he left the party early and does not know what might have happened to Spangler. Two years after the fact, Hopkins is approached by another person who was in the party that night, and the encounter sets Hopkins on a mission to discover the truth. The task nearly consumes him and will certainly keep a reader glued to the book, fascinated both by Abbott's description of the ugly realities that lay behind the Tinsel town glitter and by Gil Hopkin's quest to uncover the mystery of the missing starlet.
January 18, 2012
Some settings and plots belong so strongly to one writer that you can't remove them from it. I'm having a hard time thinking of other examples, but I know they are out there. But if you are writing about the seediest of the under-under belly of late 1940's / 1950's LA, and you are showing Hollywood stars as being amoral degenerates, and you have Mickey Cohen lingering around in the background, and you have an unsolved missing woman / murdered woman at the center of your plot you are treading on James Ellroy territory. It's unavoidable, it would be like setting a novel in Dublin on June 16th and not expect readers to be thinking Joyce the entire time they are reading your words.
This isn't a James Ellroy novel though, it's a Megan Abbott novel. And I had to keep reminding myself of that and I had to keep thinking stop judging this as Ellroy, it's not Ellroy. But it almost could be, it could the lost novel of Ellroy's that he wrote say between Suicide Hill and the start of his LA Quartet. It's a novel Ellroy could have written if he hadn't taken that drastic turn away from just writing good crime novels and began to pare down his prose with a scalpel until he reached the staccato brilliance of his USA Trilogy. It's the novel that Ellroy could have written in between the time he went from being good to being great.
I'm being so unfair though. This isn't a James Ellroy novel!
I am kind of envious of Karen that she will get to read this without having any Ellroy to compare it too. I think that she needs to rectify this situation though and read some Ellroy at some point this year. He's just too good to miss out on.
But this is a review for a Megan Abbott book.
It's a good throwback noir novel. It's grittier than a lot of the things I've read from the actual era. It wallows (perhaps a bit too much?) in the cliche snappy dialogue, but as Ellroy (he's back, sorry, this is from the blurb he provided on the front cover, you can't miss him here) says, she's a deconstructionist, and you get the feeling that she is having a fun time taking apart some of the hard-boiled tropes and amplifying them for some purpose that I can't quite put my finger on. For example when one character questions to himself why he just called a woman a doll, when that isn't how he normally talks, you get a level added to the text that isn't in your usual hard-boiled noir writing (or at least not in it's original versions, these days just about everyone has played with the genre in some way or another).
As a story it's good and there are enough little twists and turns to keep the plot flowing nicely. Her writing is a little wordy in this book, and I was surprised when I just looked up on Wikipedia and saw that this book came out the same year as Queenpin. Her writing in the other novel was a bit snappier and would have fit better for a novel that is treading so far on to you know who's territory.
I'm giving this three stars, but it's a high three stars and I thought it was much better than most of the other crime novels I've given three stars to, but I feel like comparing it to you know who and to Queenpin I've got to be a little harsh.
This isn't a James Ellroy novel though, it's a Megan Abbott novel. And I had to keep reminding myself of that and I had to keep thinking stop judging this as Ellroy, it's not Ellroy. But it almost could be, it could the lost novel of Ellroy's that he wrote say between Suicide Hill and the start of his LA Quartet. It's a novel Ellroy could have written if he hadn't taken that drastic turn away from just writing good crime novels and began to pare down his prose with a scalpel until he reached the staccato brilliance of his USA Trilogy. It's the novel that Ellroy could have written in between the time he went from being good to being great.
I'm being so unfair though. This isn't a James Ellroy novel!
I am kind of envious of Karen that she will get to read this without having any Ellroy to compare it too. I think that she needs to rectify this situation though and read some Ellroy at some point this year. He's just too good to miss out on.
But this is a review for a Megan Abbott book.
It's a good throwback noir novel. It's grittier than a lot of the things I've read from the actual era. It wallows (perhaps a bit too much?) in the cliche snappy dialogue, but as Ellroy (he's back, sorry, this is from the blurb he provided on the front cover, you can't miss him here) says, she's a deconstructionist, and you get the feeling that she is having a fun time taking apart some of the hard-boiled tropes and amplifying them for some purpose that I can't quite put my finger on. For example when one character questions to himself why he just called a woman a doll, when that isn't how he normally talks, you get a level added to the text that isn't in your usual hard-boiled noir writing (or at least not in it's original versions, these days just about everyone has played with the genre in some way or another).
As a story it's good and there are enough little twists and turns to keep the plot flowing nicely. Her writing is a little wordy in this book, and I was surprised when I just looked up on Wikipedia and saw that this book came out the same year as Queenpin. Her writing in the other novel was a bit snappier and would have fit better for a novel that is treading so far on to you know who's territory.
I'm giving this three stars, but it's a high three stars and I thought it was much better than most of the other crime novels I've given three stars to, but I feel like comparing it to you know who and to Queenpin I've got to be a little harsh.
October 6, 2012
Not James Ellroy light, more like Megan Abbott light.
Having developed in to a major Abbott fan this year I was almost giddy with joy at finding this in a clearance sale on Wednesday. It was all I could do not to put everything else aside and read it instantly, instead forcing myself to wait what turned out to be three whole impatient days until finally a day on the sofa with the lowlife behaviour of Hollywood stars and starlets for company could be accomodated.
It was going to take something special to live up to that expectation so obviously The Song Is You couldn't and didn't. Ms Abbott is referred to as the female James Ellroy; with Kemper going so far as to call her a saner, more lucid version of the King of Sleazy Hollywood Noir and of the three books of hers that I've read so far this is the one that comes closest to apeing the great mans style. Seemlessly blending true crime Hollywood history with a fiction framework we are taken on a journey to the dark side of one man's soul and out the other side as he investigates the real life disappearance of actress Jean Spangler.
Megan writes a damn fine story filled with twists and violence and generally reprehensible behaviour from all but something just doesn't sit right, there's something missing, something lacking from my enjoyment. The closest I can come to putting my finger on it is by comparing it to a Hollywood movie of the period, they're great but never dipping below the surface of the narrative for fear of offending, something is always missing. Same here. It's like Abbott has written a 50s movie version of a James Ellroy book or even one of her own more fulfilling novels.
Even having said all of this I still must read more Megan Abbott. And you should too.
Having developed in to a major Abbott fan this year I was almost giddy with joy at finding this in a clearance sale on Wednesday. It was all I could do not to put everything else aside and read it instantly, instead forcing myself to wait what turned out to be three whole impatient days until finally a day on the sofa with the lowlife behaviour of Hollywood stars and starlets for company could be accomodated.
It was going to take something special to live up to that expectation so obviously The Song Is You couldn't and didn't. Ms Abbott is referred to as the female James Ellroy; with Kemper going so far as to call her a saner, more lucid version of the King of Sleazy Hollywood Noir and of the three books of hers that I've read so far this is the one that comes closest to apeing the great mans style. Seemlessly blending true crime Hollywood history with a fiction framework we are taken on a journey to the dark side of one man's soul and out the other side as he investigates the real life disappearance of actress Jean Spangler.
Megan writes a damn fine story filled with twists and violence and generally reprehensible behaviour from all but something just doesn't sit right, there's something missing, something lacking from my enjoyment. The closest I can come to putting my finger on it is by comparing it to a Hollywood movie of the period, they're great but never dipping below the surface of the narrative for fear of offending, something is always missing. Same here. It's like Abbott has written a 50s movie version of a James Ellroy book or even one of her own more fulfilling novels.
Even having said all of this I still must read more Megan Abbott. And you should too.
December 4, 2013
Megan Abbott explodes into the roman noir genre, a genre traditionally overrun with men, and takes no prisoners in her amazingly dark and twisted thriller "The Song is You". I'm not sure, but I think this is only her second book. Her first, "Die A Little" (which I have not read yet) was nominated for just about every mystery award out there, including the Edgar, the Anthony, and the Barry. Needless to say, she is a new and powerful force in the genre to be reckoned with.
"The Song is You" is a fictionalized murder mystery based on the real-life mystery of Jean Spangler. On October 7, 1949, a young, beautiful Hollywood starlet said goodbye to her five-year-old daughter and the babysitter. She was never seen again. Her purse was found in a park days later, with an enigmatic letter addressed to "Kirk" (police investigated but ruled out young Kirk Douglas as a potential suspect early on; they had worked on a film together, but there was no other evidence they associated with each other off-set) and a bevy of crazy rumors about possible connections with LA gangster Mickey Cohen.
The story isn't really about her, though. The real story belongs to smarmy Hollywood publicist Gil "Hop" Hopkins, who reluctantly takes on the role of detective. He's a charismatic player who doesn't care about anyone but himself, and he doesn't completely understand why he feels the need to find out what happened to Spangler, just one of the hundreds of doe-eyed little girls he's run across in Tinseltown. What was it about her? And why is he suddenly feeling this uncomfortable urge to settle down and have a family?
Hop is an immoral son of a bitch, but as he begins to uncover seamier and darker underbellies of the Hollywood that he loves, he begins to feel the nagging poke of his buried conscience.
Fans of James Ellroy will enjoy Abbott, who brings a unique, disturbing, and powerful perspective to the genre of Hollywood noir.
"The Song is You" is a fictionalized murder mystery based on the real-life mystery of Jean Spangler. On October 7, 1949, a young, beautiful Hollywood starlet said goodbye to her five-year-old daughter and the babysitter. She was never seen again. Her purse was found in a park days later, with an enigmatic letter addressed to "Kirk" (police investigated but ruled out young Kirk Douglas as a potential suspect early on; they had worked on a film together, but there was no other evidence they associated with each other off-set) and a bevy of crazy rumors about possible connections with LA gangster Mickey Cohen.
The story isn't really about her, though. The real story belongs to smarmy Hollywood publicist Gil "Hop" Hopkins, who reluctantly takes on the role of detective. He's a charismatic player who doesn't care about anyone but himself, and he doesn't completely understand why he feels the need to find out what happened to Spangler, just one of the hundreds of doe-eyed little girls he's run across in Tinseltown. What was it about her? And why is he suddenly feeling this uncomfortable urge to settle down and have a family?
Hop is an immoral son of a bitch, but as he begins to uncover seamier and darker underbellies of the Hollywood that he loves, he begins to feel the nagging poke of his buried conscience.
Fans of James Ellroy will enjoy Abbott, who brings a unique, disturbing, and powerful perspective to the genre of Hollywood noir.
September 14, 2020
3.5 stars
Two years ago, actress Jean Spangler left her home to meet with her ex-husband about child support payments and was never seen again. Spangler simply disappeared — the only trace of her that was found was her purse, located two days later, with a cryptic note inside.
Now, former journalist Gil “Hop” Hopkins is a fixer for the studio, starting or putting out fires, depending on what they need. He’s currently trying to clean up the image of an actress caught in a love triangle when Iolene arrives to talk about the night Jean disappeared.
Hop had been partying with Iolene and Jean but eventually left with another woman and though he knew her disappearance was shady, Hop kept quiet because he was offered a publicity job at the studio and fixed the books so no one would know Jean had been filming the evening she disappeared. Now Iolene is accusing Hop of covering up her murder.
Iolene’s visit stirs up guilt for Hop and soon he’s desperate to learn the truth of the missing starlet. With the help of his pal Jerry (who also happens to be sleeping with Hop’s ex-wife) and the reporter Frannie Adair, Hop is navigating the seedy underbelly of Hollywood he tries to keep the studios away from.
A fast-paced crime noir with snappy, crisp dialogue and fantastic atmosphere, I recommend The Song Is You to readers who love historical fiction and hard boiled mystery.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
Two years ago, actress Jean Spangler left her home to meet with her ex-husband about child support payments and was never seen again. Spangler simply disappeared — the only trace of her that was found was her purse, located two days later, with a cryptic note inside.
Now, former journalist Gil “Hop” Hopkins is a fixer for the studio, starting or putting out fires, depending on what they need. He’s currently trying to clean up the image of an actress caught in a love triangle when Iolene arrives to talk about the night Jean disappeared.
Hop had been partying with Iolene and Jean but eventually left with another woman and though he knew her disappearance was shady, Hop kept quiet because he was offered a publicity job at the studio and fixed the books so no one would know Jean had been filming the evening she disappeared. Now Iolene is accusing Hop of covering up her murder.
Iolene’s visit stirs up guilt for Hop and soon he’s desperate to learn the truth of the missing starlet. With the help of his pal Jerry (who also happens to be sleeping with Hop’s ex-wife) and the reporter Frannie Adair, Hop is navigating the seedy underbelly of Hollywood he tries to keep the studios away from.
A fast-paced crime noir with snappy, crisp dialogue and fantastic atmosphere, I recommend The Song Is You to readers who love historical fiction and hard boiled mystery.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
August 14, 2015
Gil “Hop” Hopkins works as a publicist for a major Hollywood studio where he specializes in twisting the truth and covering up conspiracies. He’s approached by a young woman accusing him of omitting details surrounding the disappearance of her friend, actress Jean Spangler. While he tries to sell her on the tired excuse of “I was just doing my job”, his guilt eventually gets the best of him as he begins digging into the cold case looking for answers.
While Gil begins by playing it close to the chest, he leaks information and confesses his potential guilt to a hard nosed Hollywood reporter after a night of heavy drinking. Luckily for Gil, he’s a damn good liar, so spinning clues and keeping the reporter in the dark proves to be easy in the beginning. But as the pressure of the case mounts and the reporter’s determination refuses to waiver, Gil begins to buckle.
The disappearance of Jean Spangler is an actual cold case and much of the plot in Abbott’s book matches up with how events actually unfolded following Spangler’s disappearance. Spangler disappeared on October 7th, 1949 after telling her family she was going to meet with her ex-husband to discuss a late child support payment, after which she would head off to a night shoot for a film. After Jean was reported missing, her purse was found near Griffith Park containing a note addressed to “Kirk” (believed at one time to be referring to Kirk Douglas) stating that Jean was going to see a Dr. Scott – an appointment authorities believed was for an abortion. Abbott also plays up Spangler’s association with Mickey Cohen goon Davy Ogul. However, that is about where fact ends and fiction begins.
Gil’s investigation takes him through the gutter of post-war Los Angeles; through seedy nightclubs, sexual deviancy and alcoholism using crackling dialogue and prose that brings 1950s California to life. Gil is a compelling character who isn’t shy in sharing his cynicism of Hollywood while also being aware that his job directly contradicts his attitude. I almost feel like it’s the wrong word, but he’s a fun character to tag along with as he’s never dull to say the least.
It’s worth mentioning that The Song is You will inevitably draw comparisons to James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, another novel I enjoyed that took an actual crime and mixed it up with fictional characters. Both novels excel in presenting a case and seemingly wrapping it up where others could not. It’s an interesting way of presenting the genre, even if the authors deviated from the facts. However, it is crime FICTION after all.
More Abbott please!
While Gil begins by playing it close to the chest, he leaks information and confesses his potential guilt to a hard nosed Hollywood reporter after a night of heavy drinking. Luckily for Gil, he’s a damn good liar, so spinning clues and keeping the reporter in the dark proves to be easy in the beginning. But as the pressure of the case mounts and the reporter’s determination refuses to waiver, Gil begins to buckle.
The disappearance of Jean Spangler is an actual cold case and much of the plot in Abbott’s book matches up with how events actually unfolded following Spangler’s disappearance. Spangler disappeared on October 7th, 1949 after telling her family she was going to meet with her ex-husband to discuss a late child support payment, after which she would head off to a night shoot for a film. After Jean was reported missing, her purse was found near Griffith Park containing a note addressed to “Kirk” (believed at one time to be referring to Kirk Douglas) stating that Jean was going to see a Dr. Scott – an appointment authorities believed was for an abortion. Abbott also plays up Spangler’s association with Mickey Cohen goon Davy Ogul. However, that is about where fact ends and fiction begins.
Gil’s investigation takes him through the gutter of post-war Los Angeles; through seedy nightclubs, sexual deviancy and alcoholism using crackling dialogue and prose that brings 1950s California to life. Gil is a compelling character who isn’t shy in sharing his cynicism of Hollywood while also being aware that his job directly contradicts his attitude. I almost feel like it’s the wrong word, but he’s a fun character to tag along with as he’s never dull to say the least.
It’s worth mentioning that The Song is You will inevitably draw comparisons to James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, another novel I enjoyed that took an actual crime and mixed it up with fictional characters. Both novels excel in presenting a case and seemingly wrapping it up where others could not. It’s an interesting way of presenting the genre, even if the authors deviated from the facts. However, it is crime FICTION after all.
More Abbott please!
December 13, 2016
If you want to read about the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in the 1950s, this is your book. Megan Abbott is a superb writer - I loved Die a Little - so I stuck with this longer than I otherwise might have. This is a decent noir novel with a mostly interesting plot, but the sexual violence in this book is so strong, starting with , that it was hard for me to enjoy it. The narrative is propulsive and I needed to find out what happened, but it's a stretch to say that I liked it.
I think if you liked Sharp Objects you'd like this, and it's probably one of the more interesting, current noir novels out there. I personally have a hard time with sexual violence, and that's an Emily problem rather than a Megan Abbott problem. I should have known after this:
I read this out loud to Matt in the longest Chipotle line ever in Lebec, California (RIP me), and he said, "Did a woman write that? Does that make it okay?" I'm not really sure. At least when Megan Abbott is going for Mood, she goes for it.
I think if you liked Sharp Objects you'd like this, and it's probably one of the more interesting, current noir novels out there. I personally have a hard time with sexual violence, and that's an Emily problem rather than a Megan Abbott problem. I should have known after this:
Thankfully, with drinks, she grew not more soulful but more filthy, like a slutty baton twirler, every red-blooded American man’s deepest dream.
I read this out loud to Matt in the longest Chipotle line ever in Lebec, California (RIP me), and he said, "Did a woman write that? Does that make it okay?" I'm not really sure. At least when Megan Abbott is going for Mood, she goes for it.
March 27, 2018
Megan Abbott’s second noir novel, The Song is You (2007), though set in 1950s Hollywood, is topical in light of the #MeToo furore.
Based on the real-life disappearance of actress Jean Spangler, this novel peels off some of the gloss from Tinseltown. Spin doctor Gil ‘Hop’ Hopkins, former reporter, is tasked with running interference for the movie stars, ensuring that no mud sticks, that scandal stays buried. He’s pretty good at what he does, turning a blind eye to debauchery and traumatised starlets.
There are a number of appropriate name-drops from that period.
On the night when Jean went missing, Hop had been among the crowd she was with, and now he has to retrace the steps of an unsavoury male double act in order to muddy the water and inter memories. Drugs, sex, and violence – it’s all here, though not too graphic. The few clues from the real case are inserted in the story, with convincing explanations. The real mobster Dave Ogul of the time also features.
While covering tracks, Hop becomes entangled with girl reporter Frannie Adair who’s also on the case. ‘She had been easy for Hop to spot, the sole pair of heels and the only ass worth a glance in the sweeping room full of sweat-stained unshaven ginks. … all ginger curls and round cheeks, like three months off the farm, until she spoke. Twitching her freckled nose, she shot back at him, “What’s it like going over to enemy lines, turning stooge for the plastic factory?”
She didn’t take prisoners, it seems: “I hear you’ve done more white-washing than Tom Sawyer.” (p47)
Besides wit and one-liners, Abbott delivers an atmospheric hardboiled tale. Despite his less than savoury character, you’re drawn to Hop, a flawed man who wanted to be good, but that didn’t pay enough. We’re with him as he turns over stones and sees what crawls out from under; when he stumbles upon a corpse, ‘Hop felt his body rise out of his skin, hover there a second, and then thud back down to earth.’
If noir fiction is your thing, then The Song is You is worth your while.
In the real world, the case of Jean Spangler remained unsolved; in the novel Hop gets to a solution.
Based on the real-life disappearance of actress Jean Spangler, this novel peels off some of the gloss from Tinseltown. Spin doctor Gil ‘Hop’ Hopkins, former reporter, is tasked with running interference for the movie stars, ensuring that no mud sticks, that scandal stays buried. He’s pretty good at what he does, turning a blind eye to debauchery and traumatised starlets.
There are a number of appropriate name-drops from that period.
On the night when Jean went missing, Hop had been among the crowd she was with, and now he has to retrace the steps of an unsavoury male double act in order to muddy the water and inter memories. Drugs, sex, and violence – it’s all here, though not too graphic. The few clues from the real case are inserted in the story, with convincing explanations. The real mobster Dave Ogul of the time also features.
While covering tracks, Hop becomes entangled with girl reporter Frannie Adair who’s also on the case. ‘She had been easy for Hop to spot, the sole pair of heels and the only ass worth a glance in the sweeping room full of sweat-stained unshaven ginks. … all ginger curls and round cheeks, like three months off the farm, until she spoke. Twitching her freckled nose, she shot back at him, “What’s it like going over to enemy lines, turning stooge for the plastic factory?”
She didn’t take prisoners, it seems: “I hear you’ve done more white-washing than Tom Sawyer.” (p47)
Besides wit and one-liners, Abbott delivers an atmospheric hardboiled tale. Despite his less than savoury character, you’re drawn to Hop, a flawed man who wanted to be good, but that didn’t pay enough. We’re with him as he turns over stones and sees what crawls out from under; when he stumbles upon a corpse, ‘Hop felt his body rise out of his skin, hover there a second, and then thud back down to earth.’
If noir fiction is your thing, then The Song is You is worth your while.
In the real world, the case of Jean Spangler remained unsolved; in the novel Hop gets to a solution.
July 13, 2016
I was answering a question recently about adaptations I wanted, and "HBO series based on Megan Abbott's The Song is You" made my top five. There's a complex, coherent, and satisfyingly twisty plot here as studio fixer Gil Hopkins pokes retrospectively into the disappearance of bit actress Jean Spangler. He's not motivated by righteousness as much as by a very belated pang of conscience, because he owes his current status as the studio's behind-the-scenes golden boy to how well he orchestrated the cover-up surrounding Spangler's vanishing act. See, Hop observed two prominent song-and-dance men with clean images and bad private reputations drinking and partying with Spangler earlier in the evening, and when she went missing, he rushed to construct their alibis. Now he's regretting it, especially when he's drunk.
Hop makes for a great, ambivalent, morally compromised tour guide to Abbott's lush and lurid Golden Age Hollywood. He has a moral compass, but it's gone a little wonky from sleaze, ambition, and weakness: down these mean streets goes a man who is not himself mean, but who has never really expended any effort stop meanness, either. Abbott also has a little fun playing with some of the more gendered tropes of noir--while Hop is surrounded by a cast of strong, glamorous women with complex agendas of their own, he's the real looker, a pretty boy with the gift of making smart women foolish, at least for a time. He knows that, and he knows how to use it.
Abbott constructs a satisfying mystery with plenty of red herrings and fraught revelations--Hop also dances around a side-mystery involving his own failed (abandoned, really) marriage, in which his wife may have secrets of her own--but the real star here is Hollywood itself. It's a town built on glittering dreams, broken hearts, damage, exploitation, and even murder. Abbott nails the sense of the sordid world beneath the hard-sold studio image--rape, syphilis, mutilation, and blood-soaked sheets all turn up and are genuinely and brutally shocking, even as Hop and his fellows cover them up as routinely and as they cover up the more-expected star scandals of affairs and abortions--but she also doesn't overly romanticize the difference between the image and the reality. At one point, someone evokes the specter of the idea that Hollywood chews up the beautiful girls and boys who innocently come to it for fame, and someone else shoots that down as fundamentally naive. The city may have a way of aiding someone's fall, but it doesn't work alone, and the rest of the world isn't much better. Hop, after all, has heard enough stars spill stories of their childhood abuse to take very seriously the idea that Los Angeles offers anything unique in the way of corruption.
A tarnished lead, a fog of mystery and intrigue, some startling eruptions of violence, and a dark and glittering setting make this novel a win all-around.
I'll have to try to knock out reviews of the rest of Abbott's work before You Will Know Me launches.
Hop makes for a great, ambivalent, morally compromised tour guide to Abbott's lush and lurid Golden Age Hollywood. He has a moral compass, but it's gone a little wonky from sleaze, ambition, and weakness: down these mean streets goes a man who is not himself mean, but who has never really expended any effort stop meanness, either. Abbott also has a little fun playing with some of the more gendered tropes of noir--while Hop is surrounded by a cast of strong, glamorous women with complex agendas of their own, he's the real looker, a pretty boy with the gift of making smart women foolish, at least for a time. He knows that, and he knows how to use it.
Abbott constructs a satisfying mystery with plenty of red herrings and fraught revelations--Hop also dances around a side-mystery involving his own failed (abandoned, really) marriage, in which his wife may have secrets of her own--but the real star here is Hollywood itself. It's a town built on glittering dreams, broken hearts, damage, exploitation, and even murder. Abbott nails the sense of the sordid world beneath the hard-sold studio image--rape, syphilis, mutilation, and blood-soaked sheets all turn up and are genuinely and brutally shocking, even as Hop and his fellows cover them up as routinely and as they cover up the more-expected star scandals of affairs and abortions--but she also doesn't overly romanticize the difference between the image and the reality. At one point, someone evokes the specter of the idea that Hollywood chews up the beautiful girls and boys who innocently come to it for fame, and someone else shoots that down as fundamentally naive. The city may have a way of aiding someone's fall, but it doesn't work alone, and the rest of the world isn't much better. Hop, after all, has heard enough stars spill stories of their childhood abuse to take very seriously the idea that Los Angeles offers anything unique in the way of corruption.
A tarnished lead, a fog of mystery and intrigue, some startling eruptions of violence, and a dark and glittering setting make this novel a win all-around.
I'll have to try to knock out reviews of the rest of Abbott's work before You Will Know Me launches.
March 29, 2017
I flipping love Megan Abbott!
I particularly love Megan Abbott when she’s turning her attention to the seedy underbelly of The Golden Age of Hollywood. When she’s capturing the cigarette-smoke filled allure of it all, but doing it in such a way that rubs the shine off that allure to leave nothing but jagged ends. This isn’t glamour with rough edges, but rough edges buffered up so they look glamourous. There are show-girls and sirens; there are pretty boys and tough guys; the pop of a flashbulb from a studio publicist capturing a cheesecake shot and the pop of a flashbulb from some low-paid police employee recording a crime scene. Yes, it’s heavily indebted to James Ellroy (and has a lineage that stretches all the way back to Chandler), but Abbott makes it her own. The women aren’t insignificant characters here – they’re not just there to scream or fall in love at the drop of a fedora, or even turn out to be the killer all along. No, they’re (even in this book, which has a male protagonist) the engine of the piece, the driver. These are books all about women. This is feminist crime fiction at its best.
A couple of years before ‘The Song is You’ opens, a starlet made headlines by disappearing. It wasn’t as gruesomely noteworthy as the Elizabeth Short case, but she got her ink. Now a young studio publicist, who was one of the last people to see her and who maybe looked the other way when he shouldn’t have, runs face first into his conscience and wants to find out exactly what happened. But is this man – who spends his career stroking and smoothing out the seedy underbelly – prepared for how truly ugly the dark side of Hollywood it?
I’m sure Abbott will slightly disappoint some, as the story sets itself up like a whodunit but it’s really a crime melodrama – I didn’t mind a jot though. I loved it. I loved the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue (witty repartee beyond witty repartee, as if Abbott never saw a fast-talking 1940’s noir that she didn’t take copious notes from), the incredible twisted and twisty plot, and the whole goddamn thing.
As I was reading it I started wondering how many other hard-boiled crime meets sizzling Hollywood glamour authors there are out there, as I adore this little nook of crime fiction. If there are any you’d recommend, please do let me know. If not, I’ll just content myself with reading and re-reading Megan Abbott for the rest of my life, and really there are worse fates than that.
I particularly love Megan Abbott when she’s turning her attention to the seedy underbelly of The Golden Age of Hollywood. When she’s capturing the cigarette-smoke filled allure of it all, but doing it in such a way that rubs the shine off that allure to leave nothing but jagged ends. This isn’t glamour with rough edges, but rough edges buffered up so they look glamourous. There are show-girls and sirens; there are pretty boys and tough guys; the pop of a flashbulb from a studio publicist capturing a cheesecake shot and the pop of a flashbulb from some low-paid police employee recording a crime scene. Yes, it’s heavily indebted to James Ellroy (and has a lineage that stretches all the way back to Chandler), but Abbott makes it her own. The women aren’t insignificant characters here – they’re not just there to scream or fall in love at the drop of a fedora, or even turn out to be the killer all along. No, they’re (even in this book, which has a male protagonist) the engine of the piece, the driver. These are books all about women. This is feminist crime fiction at its best.
A couple of years before ‘The Song is You’ opens, a starlet made headlines by disappearing. It wasn’t as gruesomely noteworthy as the Elizabeth Short case, but she got her ink. Now a young studio publicist, who was one of the last people to see her and who maybe looked the other way when he shouldn’t have, runs face first into his conscience and wants to find out exactly what happened. But is this man – who spends his career stroking and smoothing out the seedy underbelly – prepared for how truly ugly the dark side of Hollywood it?
I’m sure Abbott will slightly disappoint some, as the story sets itself up like a whodunit but it’s really a crime melodrama – I didn’t mind a jot though. I loved it. I loved the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue (witty repartee beyond witty repartee, as if Abbott never saw a fast-talking 1940’s noir that she didn’t take copious notes from), the incredible twisted and twisty plot, and the whole goddamn thing.
As I was reading it I started wondering how many other hard-boiled crime meets sizzling Hollywood glamour authors there are out there, as I adore this little nook of crime fiction. If there are any you’d recommend, please do let me know. If not, I’ll just content myself with reading and re-reading Megan Abbott for the rest of my life, and really there are worse fates than that.
January 21, 2016
This is classic crime noir where the men are extra macho to hide their flaws and the women are Hollywood atarlets who know how to use their
ass
ets to get what they want.
I think Abbott does a great job of giving this a 1940s/1950s feel.
Well-written and entertaining. Recommend to fans of crime noir.
I think Abbott does a great job of giving this a 1940s/1950s feel.
Well-written and entertaining. Recommend to fans of crime noir.
June 28, 2012
The Song is You was my introduction to Megan Abbott, and on its strength, I'd like to read her other books. Her prose is impeccable, clean and hard-boiled and thoughtfully crafted. The story is compelling, and the plot unfolds in a natural way.
I sort of hate the main character, but I have no doubt that Abbott hates him too. Gil Hopkins (Hop) is a slimy publicity man whose flaws include the usual arrogance and glib charm, but also a crazy level of misogyny that is as tied to his character as it is to his era. In one of the first scenes of the novel, an actress tells him about the time she was raped at the age of fourteen by a friend's father. She frames it as a sexual encounter, and his reaction is as despicable as you can hope. He also blames his serial infidelity on tantalizing sluts, and at one point physically attacks a woman. Abbott did not mean to draw a likable protagonist by any means. To her credit, Hop's character arc is interesting, even though you never root for him.
The style is fantastic. James Ellroy is the easiest comparison, but Abbott is less long-winded. I like her turns of phrase, and they fit the glamorous/dirty Old Hollywood story quite well. I do think I would have enjoyed the book more if I'd been able to care for the protagonist, but The Song is You is a good novel. I'm happy I came across it, and I have more Abbott on my list.
I sort of hate the main character, but I have no doubt that Abbott hates him too. Gil Hopkins (Hop) is a slimy publicity man whose flaws include the usual arrogance and glib charm, but also a crazy level of misogyny that is as tied to his character as it is to his era. In one of the first scenes of the novel, an actress tells him about the time she was raped at the age of fourteen by a friend's father. She frames it as a sexual encounter, and his reaction is as despicable as you can hope. He also blames his serial infidelity on tantalizing sluts, and at one point physically attacks a woman. Abbott did not mean to draw a likable protagonist by any means. To her credit, Hop's character arc is interesting, even though you never root for him.
The style is fantastic. James Ellroy is the easiest comparison, but Abbott is less long-winded. I like her turns of phrase, and they fit the glamorous/dirty Old Hollywood story quite well. I do think I would have enjoyed the book more if I'd been able to care for the protagonist, but The Song is You is a good novel. I'm happy I came across it, and I have more Abbott on my list.
Shelved as 'aborted-efforts'
September 17, 2014You know what, this is super lame of me, but I'm bailing on page 120. I could keep going, I'm not miserable, but I'm not so happy either.
What sucks is that I really, really wanted Megan Abbott to be my new favorite author and ideally also my new best friend, but despite this being theoretically a book designed specifically for me -- James Ellroy's material, but with a sly tongue-in-cheek sensibility and written by a GIRL -- for some reason I just don't care. I'm completely uninterested in the characters, and don't care at all whodunnit or whatever'll happen next. I do like her writing style and Abbott shares a lot of my (common enough) preoccupations -- with old Hollywood glitz and sleaze, with mid-twentieth-century crime novels and film and these classic forms' representations of gender -- but there's just something here that's not coming together for me. The world feels cartoony, and I keep thinking of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, somehow. Could be me, could be the book... doesn't matter much, really. We're gonna go our separate ways.
I'll probably try another Abbott at some point -- maybe Queenpin? -- but I suppose I've lost my chances to win her as a best friend, which is too bad because I'm sure she'd be a fun drinking buddy. You're a damned good man, sister, and I'm sorry that I'm not feeling this book.
What sucks is that I really, really wanted Megan Abbott to be my new favorite author and ideally also my new best friend, but despite this being theoretically a book designed specifically for me -- James Ellroy's material, but with a sly tongue-in-cheek sensibility and written by a GIRL -- for some reason I just don't care. I'm completely uninterested in the characters, and don't care at all whodunnit or whatever'll happen next. I do like her writing style and Abbott shares a lot of my (common enough) preoccupations -- with old Hollywood glitz and sleaze, with mid-twentieth-century crime novels and film and these classic forms' representations of gender -- but there's just something here that's not coming together for me. The world feels cartoony, and I keep thinking of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, somehow. Could be me, could be the book... doesn't matter much, really. We're gonna go our separate ways.
I'll probably try another Abbott at some point -- maybe Queenpin? -- but I suppose I've lost my chances to win her as a best friend, which is too bad because I'm sure she'd be a fun drinking buddy. You're a damned good man, sister, and I'm sorry that I'm not feeling this book.
April 11, 2020
Written in the noir style of Dashiell Hammet, The Song is You is a tightly written, fast novel of intrigue riding on the postwar heyday of Hollywood. Nobody’s sincere. Or is it the load of wise cracking and biting commentary? Everybody’s high or drunk. And the sex is freewheeling.
Gil “Hop” Hopkins is Sam Spade only he’s not looking for a black bird. He’s trying to find out what happened to a young, starlit actress dame called Jean Spangler. He’s not a detective per se yet he’s a clever publicist and he knows the people she was running with because he was there the night she went missing.
But it’s two years later when Hop is prompted to find Jean based on a dare he’s given during an anxious meeting he had with Jean’s sexy friend Iolene, a fantastic character. Has the scent of Jean gone? Does Hop want to get mixed up? Does he have a choice?
There are a lot of side stories going on and a lot of action. Abbott name drops (many of them real) like she throwing seed to the pigeons and it works because of the heady, rumor-filled atmosphere in Tinseltown where one day you’re famous and the next day you’re a has been. The story is reminiscent of Playback by Raymond Chandler where Philip Marlowe tracks down a woman on the run.
The only thing I didn’t like was the reference to the Rust Belt. To my knowledge, that sarcastic allusion didn’t appear for a few more decades.
Gil “Hop” Hopkins is Sam Spade only he’s not looking for a black bird. He’s trying to find out what happened to a young, starlit actress dame called Jean Spangler. He’s not a detective per se yet he’s a clever publicist and he knows the people she was running with because he was there the night she went missing.
But it’s two years later when Hop is prompted to find Jean based on a dare he’s given during an anxious meeting he had with Jean’s sexy friend Iolene, a fantastic character. Has the scent of Jean gone? Does Hop want to get mixed up? Does he have a choice?
There are a lot of side stories going on and a lot of action. Abbott name drops (many of them real) like she throwing seed to the pigeons and it works because of the heady, rumor-filled atmosphere in Tinseltown where one day you’re famous and the next day you’re a has been. The story is reminiscent of Playback by Raymond Chandler where Philip Marlowe tracks down a woman on the run.
The only thing I didn’t like was the reference to the Rust Belt. To my knowledge, that sarcastic allusion didn’t appear for a few more decades.
April 19, 2018
Megan Abbott is the best writer of forties/ fifties American noir alive today bar none in my opinion. This book reads like she's lived through these times not just thoroughly researched them . The characters are real,flawed ,unlikable souls wading through the sewage of their lives , trying to keep their heads above the swill. Finishing this book left me feeling grimy and seedy.... then I realised this is her intention and she achieves it every time. Simply superb.
February 8, 2013
The main character in this book, Gil Hopkins, or Hop as he was known, initially covered up the disappearance of Jean Spangler, an up and coming starlet who was tangled up with the wrong crowd. On the night she disappeared, Hop left the club early with a woman, so wasn’t privy to what finally occurred.
Two years on, when Jean’s closest friend appeared, asking for his help, she seemed scared and nervous. But he sent her away with hardly a thought. So his decision to dig into the past, to hunt back to the previous happenings, seemed a little odd, even to his own mind. But he couldn’t seem to let it go, so taking a couple of days leave, he buried himself in the thick of things…getting rolling drunk along the way, still drooling over the women he came across, not eating or sleeping. He cared about no-one but himself.
I’m afraid I didn’t like this book. Hop was a dead loss as a character, in fact there was no character at all who I felt empathy with. There didn’t seem to be a lot of point to the story, with the detail jumbled and rambling. After being keen to read this, I was really disappointed.
Two years on, when Jean’s closest friend appeared, asking for his help, she seemed scared and nervous. But he sent her away with hardly a thought. So his decision to dig into the past, to hunt back to the previous happenings, seemed a little odd, even to his own mind. But he couldn’t seem to let it go, so taking a couple of days leave, he buried himself in the thick of things…getting rolling drunk along the way, still drooling over the women he came across, not eating or sleeping. He cared about no-one but himself.
I’m afraid I didn’t like this book. Hop was a dead loss as a character, in fact there was no character at all who I felt empathy with. There didn’t seem to be a lot of point to the story, with the detail jumbled and rambling. After being keen to read this, I was really disappointed.
May 27, 2015
Ostensibly a whodunnit in which the narrator, Gil "Hop" Hopkins, is trying to find out what happened to beautiful actress Jean Spengler in 1949, whose disappearance in sordid circumstances he guiltily feels he might have been able to prevent, but the real search is not for what happened to Jean but for what happened to himself. Has she disappeared into the corrupt cesspool of Hollywood? And has he? Is there anything left of the man, the human being, he used to be? Or has Hollywood eaten him up? I felt like I was a bit at sea for much of this narrative, wondering what exactly he was trying to do, to hunt down the perpetrators of her probable death or to cover it up (that being his job as a studio publicity hack). And he's not sure which he's trying to do either. All of which makes for a very interesting, very smart neo-noir.
December 7, 2018
More than two years after reading I see I never rated it. Which is good, because I know for sure after this much time passing that it's probably my favorite of all of her books, or a close second to Bury Me Deep. When I want to introduce someone to Megan Abbott, those are the two books I give them. But I'm still always glad Queenpin was the first of her books I read and I love the way it sunk its claws into me in such a secretly scribbled kind of rush.
November 20, 2014
Lovely. Taut, tart, and crisp. Turns out I am a real sucker for stories about the seamy underbelly of life in the 50s, and this is a prime example. I see more Megan Abbott in my future.
Read
August 15, 2018A writer friend told me to read Megan Abbott. "Who's Megan Abbott?" I asked. I'm a writer too. She gave me a scornful look, the visual equivalent of "Duh." Not wanting to embarrass myself again, I grabbed the only Abbott book still in the library. The lurid pin-up on the cover made me wonder what I was about to read. Fast forward three days. I consumed the book quicker than a box of chocolates. It was a zip-line ride back into a seedy 1950's Hollywood. The characters were complex and well-written, though not the kind of folk I'd want to share a meal with. The setting and period details were exquisite. And the plot moved at warp speed. I told my friend. "Now that I know who Megan Abbott is, her books move to the top of my TBR pile."
May 20, 2024
This is high (albeit imitation/faux/rococo) noir — expertly done.
4.5, rounded up. Just a touch less than Queenpin, which is certainly the more expert book.
4.5, rounded up. Just a touch less than Queenpin, which is certainly the more expert book.
September 26, 2018
This is one of Megan Abbott's earlier books, when she did straight-up 1940s-1950s Hollywood noir, before she turned to contemporary young adult protagonists. It's got brilliant dialogue and an evocative sense of place, just the right amount of well chosen details to make the world feel lived in. "The Song Is You" is based on the real life case of missing actress Jean Spangler, whose story is very similar to Elisabeth Short's (a.k.a. "The Black Dahlia"). The story of Jean Spangler is apparently a cold case that was never solved, and Abbott fictionalizes how things may have played out. The story is told through the eyes of protagonist Gil "Hop" Hopkins, a slimy publicist who does the wrong thing but sorta-kinda wants to start doing the right thing (or at least satisfy his own curiosity).
I loved the dialogue, and Megan Abbott can certainly write her ass off. I thought I had a five star book on my hands, but the world of the book is so steeped in misogyny and "boys will be boys" culture that it gets a little exhausting after a while. It's a he said/she said world where a woman's story often involves nearly (or actually) dying at an illegal abortion clinic while the man's is summed up as, "Got into a bit of an 'oopsie' with the maid - ah, the adventures I've had!"
To be clear, the author is (quite vigorously) critiquing this culture, not endorsing it. And I don't think she's incorrect or exaggerating, it's just so unrelentingly grim.
I know, I know - grim seems like a strange criticism. I certainly wasn't expecting a gritty murder noir to be uplifting. The best way I can explain it is that it's kind of like the experience of watching "The Handmaid's Tale" on Hulu* where it just keeps hitting you over the head with the awful-ness of the world.
*I haven't read the book but I understand that the TV show goes beyond the book in season 2.
I loved the dialogue, and Megan Abbott can certainly write her ass off. I thought I had a five star book on my hands, but the world of the book is so steeped in misogyny and "boys will be boys" culture that it gets a little exhausting after a while. It's a he said/she said world where a woman's story often involves nearly (or actually) dying at an illegal abortion clinic while the man's is summed up as, "Got into a bit of an 'oopsie' with the maid - ah, the adventures I've had!"
To be clear, the author is (quite vigorously) critiquing this culture, not endorsing it. And I don't think she's incorrect or exaggerating, it's just so unrelentingly grim.
I know, I know - grim seems like a strange criticism. I certainly wasn't expecting a gritty murder noir to be uplifting. The best way I can explain it is that it's kind of like the experience of watching "The Handmaid's Tale" on Hulu* where it just keeps hitting you over the head with the awful-ness of the world.
*I haven't read the book but I understand that the TV show goes beyond the book in season 2.
August 15, 2015
Look, this novel is amazing...it really is. However, be forewarned sensitive souls this book is DARK! At times I felt like I was drowning and being choked simultaneously. This is the third novel by Megan Abbott I've had the pleasure of indulging in.....first I read 'Bury Me Deep', then 'Die a Little'. Now this....This novel exposes the ugly underbelly of the Hollywood studio system of yore as well as the base, animalistic instincts we all simultaneously embrace and abhor and run away from.....I saw parts of myself in these characters that I didn't particularly enjoy seeing.....It also reopened my interest in the Jean Spangler disappearance. The ending was surprisingly simplistic to what I envisioned in my mind but I'm not complaining. It's been a couple of days since I finished this tome and it is still 'with me' so to speak. I also enjoyed the retro references, the illustrative descriptions of people, places and things.....the double-speak, double entredres....the constant cynicism, depravity, moral relativism and the characters multiple angles.....Angsty....Under the positive PR and the lovely motion pictures and the song and dance numbers and gorgeous stills in movie magazines there was always and is always darkness.....simmering just beneath the surface. This tome is an unflinching look at the holographic illusions of public presentation. Also, very Apollo vs. Dionysus Painful, gritty, but entertaining.
May 4, 2009
a beautiful book whose title had nothing to do with what was going on in the book. the prose was mesmerizing and it magnetized me, made me linger on the pages, rereading lines and dialogue and metaphor. it was lustful and dirty, it was charming and witty, it was seedy and dark and everything i expect from a noir novel. i don't know about getting down on my knees and begging for mercy, but the book was magnificent. however, if you are looking for something with a traditional storyline, something with resolution that does something more than convey a mood and a feeling, you will be disappointed.
May 22, 2018
My favorite aspect of pulp and neo-pulp novels is the snappy dialog. Megan Abbott nails it.
This book fictionalizes a real life incident, the disappearance of Jean Spangler. People who like film noir or Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" may well enjoy this book.
This book fictionalizes a real life incident, the disappearance of Jean Spangler. People who like film noir or Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" may well enjoy this book.
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