The Song Is You: A Novel Kindle Edition

You'll like this. Walter Mosley wrote books about Ellroy's LA from a Black mans' point of view (and very well, I should add) and Megan Abbott writes about the same town from a show-biz point of view. Like Ellroy she melds fact and fiction in this book but her main character, Hop, is not the pure, lovable evil of Ellroy's characters, but instead an ambivalent character who can generate hatred and sympathy, sometimes at the same time. Like Ellroy, it was a blast to read; entertaining and fast moving. I look forward to reading more of Abbott's work.

A gritty world that pulls the reader in and smears you with its grime, but you stay because you have to know what happened. You have to know who knows what and who's keeping secrets. By the end, it's all so worth it with the most delicious twist, so you close the book and take a shower to wash off the dirt, but the secrets linger and you wonder how people can actually live in this world full time. Then life smacks us in the face with Harvey Weinstein, and you realize that this world is really all around you, all the time. It never left, and it will most likely never change.

I picked up Megan Abbott's book because I'd heard her interviewed on NPR about her latest novel about a gymnast. That book was about to be released, but not quite yet. So I settled for an earlier novel that had gotten good reviews on Amazon. So now I discovered another wonderful writer, and will have to enjoy my way through her library. Oh, the book, underbelly of the movie industry, and the fixer who climbs through it. Wonderful read!

I hated this book and skimmed big sections of it hoping it would improve. The characters are cardboard, the crass dialogue is repetitive, the plot is predictable. Skip this one!

OK, I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but with a few exceptions - Ariana Franklin comes to mind - I don't like female authors. Go ahead, call me sexist, chauvinistic, a Neanderthal obsessed with things blowing up, whatever - most female authors just don't resonate with me. Then, I come across Megan Abbott in an anthology of "geezer" noir compiled by the decidedly not-female Duane Swierczynski and, hit-me-in-the-head with a 2x4 - this "dame" (no offense to the PC police - I'm only in character here) can write! At least a short story. So I go looking for more from Abbott - maybe she got lucky with the short - to see if she can tack together a novel. And I find "The Song is You". And it's even better - you'd think that Chandler or Thompson or Hammett came back as Megan Abbott - she totally nails the genre - has the rhythm, the banter, she can sling the broads and booze around the pages with the best of the pulp masters, creating that uniquely American-crime noir atmosphere that many have copied but few have matched. Here's a gal that can curse as blue and convincingly as a longshoreman, but then come right back with a "smell of, somehow, fresh ironed pillowcases, cut flowers, wind through hanging laundry" lines that the Bruens and Burkes and Swierczynskis and Gischlers could never touch - but then she's back in your face with "just some platinum-studded meat grinder with fresh-faced virgins going in one end and coming out hard-bitten whores." Holy smokes!Oh yeah - the story - and this is one of the coolest parts: Jean Spangler was a rising starlet of the 40's, who walked out of her apartment in 1951 and never returned, leaving her five-year old daughter and a big time mystery behind. True story. So Abbott takes the facts as they are known and spins her own wholly engrossing, decadent, sleazy and oily story of what may have happened - a brilliant expose of the glamour and garbage of Hollywood at its worst - a vivid dissection of slime we're drawn to like an impending train wreck. Abbott does a terrific job with the characters who, while pretty consistently not the type that will make you proud, are well drawn, credible, and if heroic, only tragically so. Characters in character with the post-WWII setting, comfortable in their "swell" banter in the days when "guys" was gender specific and, if political correctness had a meaning back then, it was likely associated with not being a Communist. Abbott takes us down this seedy path, running us through dive bars and corruption, studio hy-jinx and murder, on the way to a blistering and totally unexpected climax. It's revealing, it's poignant, it's disturbing - a tour de force of contemporary noir cleverly crafted in a period piece. Abbott has shown how to take all the jagged edges, the brutality, and the irony of top shelf crime fiction, but to temper it with a sensitivity and passion that is completely alien to those hard bitten guys of crime we love. Brilliant, Ms. Abbott.

Megan Abbott is one of the best contemporary writers. Her writing is lyrical, literary, yet suspenseful. She's a real standout talent. This is one of her earlier books. It's about the mysterious disappearance of a film star.

The author really captures the essence of early Hollywood. I am old enough to remember when Confidential Magazine first came out. This book reads like it was lifted from the pages of that magazine.An awful lot of the happenings in this novel involve real people and real events. What happens to the main character may seem horrid and grotesque but the stories that are told about some of the Hollywood people of the time make it very credible. Call up A.J. Benza on youtube.

This is the haunting tale told by a superb author.Megan Abbott has captured the mystery and heartache surrounding the tragic disappearance of Jean Spangler.Although fiction, it is based on the real case of this young actresses's disappearance.It is beautifully written. It's vivid and wonderfully told.It will leave you thinking about it long after you finish it.The publishing world is lucky to have found this talented writer and we are all fortunate to be able to read her wonderful books.I've read and enjoyed all of them!

I found this one a little disappointing as I read Megan Abbott for her monumental female voices and this has a male protagonist, which drops it from her usual lofty heights to a more mundane, run of the mill noir story. Can't hold a candle to Queenpin or Die A Little, I'm afraid.

I have to admit I found it difficult to get into the style and the dialogue but I stuck with it and after a few chapters I was engrossed.I really enjoyed the feel of the book, the author creates a vivid set of characters and places. While they are not always sympathetic I always enjoyed following their journey.

dark and gripping. i haven't read a book of hers that i couldn't put down. would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys noir fiction.

Incredibly descriptive (in the vein of the old greats), full of memorable characters (both male and female, none two-dimensional) and pulsing with intrigue. I'm becoming very fond of Abbott's distinctive writing style.