THE LITTLE MEN BY MEGAN ABBOTT {review}

ebook, 63 pages

Published September 1st 2015 by Head of Zeus
Rating: ★★★★

The Little Men is short. Very short. So short that it's probably better considered a short story than a novella. As such, this will probably be a very short review to match. The Mysterious Bookshop has published a series of short fiction from popular mystery authors that they're calling "Bibliomysteries". I'm definitely going to check a few more out, though I'll probably skip Anne Perry's because I may like murder in fiction but I'm not a fan of real-life murderers.

This story takes place in 1953 Hollywood, where failed actress Penny now works as a make-up artist on set. She's just been ditched by a Hollywood bigwig that uses and discards beautiful young women hoping that sleeping with him will grant them their big break on the silver screen. She rents a quaint little bungalow in Canyon Arms and befriends the elderly gay men living next door. They inform her of the bungalow's previous tenants, particularly a bookseller named Larry who committed suicide twelve years before, using the gas stove.

The furniture is still the same as it was when Larry lived and died there twelve years earlier, including all his books, and Mrs. Stahl, the landlord, admonishes Penny when she moves the bed a small distance from the wall. That's when things start to get weird. Penny is awakened every night at 2am by lights and noises. She begins to unravel, and we, the readers, become increasingly unsure of what is real and what is not, as she becomes sure that she is being tortured by little men and is being watched by Mrs. Stahl. The books and their former owner seem to awaken something in Penny, influencing her increasingly bizarre dreams and filtering into her everyday life, increasing her paranoia regarding the landlord.

Megan Abbott is great at creating a setting, her use of language and grimy descriptions of Hollywood transporting you there. It's easy to imagine. She deftly manages Penny's confusion and paranoia, cleverly weaving a possible murder mystery with a ghost story. The Little Men is fast and incredibly absorbing, a fun mesh of genres that you can read in a very short amount of time.