When you look at the front cover of Elizabeth Little’s Pretty as a Picture, you notice an apt blurb by Laura Lippman (see image below): “A twisty story, a cinephile’s delight, a knockout of a heroine. I loved it.” Let’s unpack that.

Twisty? Yes, but… That makes it sound like Jeffery Deaver, but it’s far from Deaveresque. Cinephile’s delight? Yes, and… It’s all about movie-making and includes tons of references — some explicit, some implicit — to movies past and present. Examples below. A knockout of a heroine? Curious use of the word “knockout,” which Dr. Merriam and Dr. Webster define as “a sensationally striking, appealing, or attractive person or thing,” While “appealing” does work here, that’s not really the point. And “I loved it,” opines Ms. Lippman; so did I. This is an outstanding novel.

You may be one of those readers who likes to know what genre a novel is. Perhaps even a subgenre:

• Is this a mainstream novel? You could call it that.
• Or is it a whodunit? Well, somewhat.
• Is it then a thriller? In parts.
• Is it a humorous mystery? Definitely — in other parts.

OK, I’m done trying to categorize it. It’s all of the above. So let’s return to a couple of the points in Lippman’s blurb. First of all, what makes Marissa, the first-person narrator or heroine or protagonist, so attractive? She’s the kind of person I’ve always enjoyed teaching. Just as we can’t pin down the genre, we also can’t pin down her diagnosis, so to speak. She clearly has anxiety disorder. But probably she also has OCD. And I think she has autism, even though she is what they used to call “high-functioning.” All of that adds up to an endearing protagonist, which may surprise some readers, but not me.

The storyline is nominally about making a movie, a Hollywood movie but not in Hollywood. Almost the entire novel takes place on location, in Delaware of all places. And of course, since Little has read her Agatha Christie, it has to be a fairly inaccessible island, where the actors and crew might all be suspects. The story, as I suggest above, is replete with references to real movies, either directly or indirectly. Three examples:

• “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” [That’s an easy one.]
• “Don’t call me Shirley.” [That too.]
• “Forget it, Jake. It’s Hollywood.” [A small change in neighborhood there.]

Without committing any spoilers, I should say something about the characters. The aforementioned protagonist is an editor; the author makes no assumptions about the reader’s knowledge of movie editors, which helps a lot! In general I should point out that I have absolutely no knowledge of any of the movie-making process, so I checked with my friend Meredith, who knows a lot about it. As far as she could tell from my carefully selected descriptions (no spoilers!), Little knows what she is writing about and has the whole thing right, from the big picture to the small details, such as why some people are on set who shouldn’t be. Two of them are two fearless young girls (ages 12 and 13) who create a podcast after the fact — from which some brief excerpts constitute between-chapters intermezzi. They act as Baker Street Irregulars and help solve the mystery.

Finally, I also want to cite four longer examples that are not so much movie-related as the quotations I included earlier, but they will give you a bit of the flavor without giving anything away:

• I grab the jar of peanut butter, twist off the top, and scoop out a generous fingerful. I suck it into my mouth and smash it between my tongue and my palate so that I can draw out as much sweetness as possible before the peanut butter melts. This was the only way my mom could get me to ear any protein as a kid. I preferred Skippy back then, but my tastes have broadened over the years. Now I’ll eat Jif and Peter Pan, too.
  
  Is this the worst idea in th the world or the best idea in the world?
  
  It’s obviously the former, right? I’d be potentially putting my job at risk to help a couple of teenagers play Nancy Drew. Worst idea.
  
  Then again, the whole point of Nancy Drew is that adults aren’t very good at solving mysteries. What if these girls really do know something Tony [the director] doesn’t?
  
• This would be so much easier if Amy were here to tell me what I’m supposed to feel.
  
• I dial Paul’s number with trembling fingers. Not because I’m afraid of what I’m going to find out. Because I hate making cold calls — no badly how badly I need an answer. When I hear the voice on the other end of the line, I nearly faint with relief. Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system.
  
• If I were another person, a regular person, the kind of person who doesn’t mind shaking hands or hugging hello or accidentally just-maybe brushing up against someone for a split second in a crowded room, if being this close to somebody were an everyday affair for me and not something that sharpened my senses well past the point of mild discomfort, if I were able to casually look at someone without being painfully, insistently aware that I’m looking at someone oh God I’m looking at someone, I honestly think I would have missed it.
  
  But I’m not another person. So I don’t.

Great book! Read it!

Categories: Books