Dark and delightful, playful and peculiar, Little is Edward Carey's absorbing, fictional re-creation of Madame Tussaud's early life. In the voice of a young Marie Grosholtz and accompanied by her personal drawings, the novel takes readers from her unfortunate childhood in a Swiss village to the hustle and bustle of 18th-century Paris.
After the death of her father and the suicide of her mother, Marie enters the care of an idiosyncratic doctor, Dr. Philip Curtius. He isn't comfortable around people--especially women--but he finds great joy in crafting body parts out of wax. Marie's ability to tolerate the wax anatomical forms endears her to him, and he teaches her the art. He doesn't find Marie threatening. Instead, "She's just Marie, she's hardly frightening. Sometimes I forget she is even female at all; she seems to have no clear sex really, or one entirely of her own: male, female, Marie. She's my Marie." Once in Paris, the pair intend to make a living casting Parisian heads in wax.
Carey's spirited style brings a lightness to Marie's bleak days and a whimsy to her brighter ones. He blends dark humor with a puckish tone for a story that's simply magnetic. Even when there's a foreboding atmosphere, his words seem to dance on the page.
The addition of Marie's drawings also adds a fascinating flair to the novel. Sometimes unsettling and other times ticklishly humorous, they offer additional insight into the mind of Carey's enormously animated "little" protagonist. Little is big in many ways: creativity, energy, concept and character. Leave plenty of room in your heart for this one; you'll need it. --Jen Forbus, freelancer