Sleepless in Scituate Harbor

Paul Tremblay says he hasn’t always been a writer, and ‘’didn’t even start messing around with writing until I started teaching [math] at St. Sebastian's.’’ he says. He’s still teaching math at the Needham school, but he has also sold more than 50 short stories since 2000, and is a two-time nominee for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award.
About a year ago, he published his first novel, ‘’The Little Sleep,’’ whose title is a clear homage to Raymond Chandler, but whose main character, a narcoleptic South Boston detective named Mark Genevich, upends the conventions of the private eye genre. Genevich is back in Tremblay’s second novel, ‘’No Sleep Till Wonderland,’’ which was published in early February.
Tremblay, a resident of Stoughton, will talk about his new book on March 5 at the Front Street Book Shop at Scituate Harbor. He recently spoke about his work with The Globe.

I sold ‘The Little Sleep’ to Henry Holt in October 2007 as a two-book deal, and the second book had to feature the same private detective. It’s kind of a joke with my agent that when I finished ‘The Little Sleep,’ I said, ‘That’s it. I’m done.’ But it’s hard to turn down a two-book deal, so I had to come up with a second book.

I tend to work by creating characters first, then building a story around them. I took me a good six or seven months to come up with a story line that I thought could work for the second book.

The first novel splits time between South Boston and the Cape, but the second book is almost exclusively in South Boston. I went into the first book figuring that most people in the United States have an idea of what South Boston is culturally, thanks to ‘Good Will Hunting’ and all the books and movies. When most people hear ‘South Boston,’ they say, ‘Okay, a close knit community, Irish Catholic.’ So for the book, I tried to play with the stereotypes. My detective is essentially a hermit because of his condition -- unlike his mother, who knows everybody in South Boston -- and he’s Lithuanian.

The first book was more about Mark and the dreamscape. The second is more about Mark’s daily struggles for independence and things that are missing from his life, like friends, and maybe even romantic interests.

I tried as best I could to make narcolepsy a part of his character. I never wanted to make it a joke, and I didn’t want people with the disease to think I was making fun of them in any way. I made narcolepsy a building point -- like what decisions he would have to make because of his condition. I must say I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people who suffer with narcolepsy have contacted me and thanked me for his portrayal. It’s been gratifying.

I have a collection of horror short fiction coming out in October, called “In the Mean Time.” Three of the stories are original and 10 or so have appeared in magazines or anthologies. I could write a third book with Mark, but if I do it, it probably won’t happen for a few years.