Finished Th 12/26/19
This is a hardback that I ordered from Amazon and received on Mo 6/24/19. When I finished this novel, I immediately ordered the next book in the series.
TWO STORIES:
1) A pharmacist and his son are murdered in their neighborhood drug story. At first Harry believes that the son was involved in a gang and this was the reason for the killings, but later he learns that this is just the tip of a huge Russian mafia run 'pill operation'.
The gang gathers homeless addicts and takes them to crooked drug stores where they collect pills on phony prescriptions. The addicts are then flown to an abandoned encampment near the Salton Sea. They are never allowed to leave and are really slaves.
Harry goes undercover to bust the gang. He's perfect because he's an 'old guy'.
2) A convicted murderer that Harry put behind bars has a new lawyer and a new angle. He has learned that another murderer's DNA has been found on an article of clothing at his murder. However, the evidence locker has been compromised.
The two lawyers (husband and wife) and a police officer in the evidence locker conspired to free the real killer and then sue the city for millions.
If this stands, then all of Harry's closed cases are in question and he might even lose his job with the San Fernando Police Department.
Harry cracks the case and proves that the evidence box had been tampered with. The crooked police officer was using old seals that he was using. He was also raiding the locker and pawning expensive jewelry and items in cases that he thought would never be reopened.
A link to Michael Connelly's page:
https://www.michaelconnelly.com/writing/two-kinds-truth/two-kinds-of-truth-reviews/
I loved the book and all things 'Harry Bosch'. I've even changed my mind about the actor, Titus Welliver. Now he's 'Harry in my mind'.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Sunday, December 22, 2019
PRINCE OF THE CITY by Robert Daley
I read about half of this during the month of December, 2019. I watched the over four hour film on Netflix discs on Saturday and Sunday, 12-21-22/19.
The author was once a real deputy police commissioner.
WHAT IT WAS:
One of the various commissions of NYC comes to a Special Investigation Unit to investigate police corruption. The SIU were 'the princes of NYC'. They were given free reign to handle their own cases, and even determine their own hours.
During the mid to late 1970's they took money and drugs on cases, but were always true to themselves; "Your partners are your only friends".
The SIU agent was more concerned about corruption in the DA's office, but he agreed to become a whistle blower. "A rat is someone who gives information to save himself, but a whistle blower gives information because he believes that he is being forced to do things that are immoral or illegal. That's how he justified himself. He wanted to get back to how he felt when he was at the police academy. To believe that he 'was doing the right thing'.
FAVORITE CASE:
Cops are staking out a local pharmacy that is involved in the drug trade. The phones are bugged and during the surveillance the pharmacist receives a call from some 'mobbed up guys'. They tell the pharmacist must store three hundred stolen TV sets. This is a very small store and it would be impossible to take these in without it being obvious about what is going on.
The cops decide to bust the pharmacist for 'stolen goods'. They call in to the station that this store is harboring stolen goods, and that officers should be sent over to shut it down. As the cops are waiting outside of the pharmacy, dozens of cars arrive driven by off duty cops. They were tipped off by fellow officers that they could go to the pharmacy and get free TV sets.
When higher ups became aware of this obvious corruption, they demanded that the cops return the sets to the store. Not all of them were returned.
All of the names of the cops in the book were changed, but what happened is almost exactly like it was in the book. I wonder why this was done?
The protagonist becomes a police instructor at the police academy.
I liked the book, but the movie worked just as well, and even better.
The film was nominated for best adaptation of a novel.
Sidney Lumet directed, but I wonder what the film would have been like if done by Marin Scorsese of Francis Coppola. And, I thought that Treat Williams was almost too boyish for the role as the SIU investigator that 'turns'. But, maybe he really was that immature looking.
Lumet is known for '12 ANGRY MEN, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, NETWORK, and THE VERDICT. He's also famous as 'A New York' film maker.
Fashion was very well done in the film; men in turtle necked sweaters, black leather trench coats, wide lapels, women's beige colored top coats with fur collars, Cuban heels and platform shoes.
And, the real streets of NYC. So much of the city looked as if it were a war zone, which was absolutely how it really was.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
HOW TO BEHAVE IN A CROWD by Camille Bordas
Finished Sa 12/14/19 The December, 2019 selection for the Contemporary Book Club.
The book is somewhere between 'charming' and 'annoying'. I could go either way.
Reminded me of J.D. Salinger's 'The Glass Family'; NINE STORIES, RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, FRANNY AND ZOOEY, CARPENTERS AND SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION.
The novel is set in France, but it could have been set in Ohio or anywhere. None of the characters or the feel of the novel didn't evoke anything that was particularly French.
Isidore Mazal- the protagonist, 11 years old. The youngest of all the children.
***Bernice- the oldest and a PHD candidate. Gets a French one, and goes to Chicago for another. Was slated to be a teacher, but hides out in Paris and doesn't tell anyone what she's done.
***Aurore- also a PHD candidate. Gets pregnant.
***Jerome- composer and cello player. Certain musical passages make him laugh.
***Leonard- Writing a thesis about Loss and Family. It turns into an expose of The Mazal's.
***Simone- closest in age to Izzie (Dorry) and wants him to write her biography.
Mother- is devastated by the loss of 'The Father', Leaves his clothes in the closet with the door open. Wants Dorry to read to her. She isn't interested in content, but only his speaking voice.
'The Father'- this is the way he is always referred to. Knocked his teeth out falling down at work. Wears a suit to work and travels a lot. Had a painless heart attack and died suddenly.
Rose- Simone's pen pal, yet she ignores Rose and bonds with Dorry. Bad spelling, but speaks her heart.
"With How to Behave in a Crowd, Camille Bordas immerses readers in the interior life of a boy puzzled by adulthood and beginning to realize that the adults around him are just as lost. A witty, heartfelt novel that brilliantly evokes the confusions of adolescence and marks the arrival of an extraordinary young talent".
From the book's page on Amazon:
"Isidore Mazal is eleven years old, the youngest of six siblings living in a small French town. He doesn't quite fit in. Berenice, Aurore, and Leonard are on track to have doctorates by age twenty-four. Jeremie performs with a symphony, and Simone, older than Isidore by eighteen months, expects a great career as a novelist—she's already put Isidore to work on her biography. The only time they leave their rooms is to gather on the old, stained couch and dissect prime-time television dramas in light of Aristotle's Poetics.
Isidore has never skipped a grade or written a dissertation. But he notices things the others don't, and asks questions they fear to ask. So when tragedy strikes the Mazal family, Isidore is the only one to recognize how everyone is struggling with their grief, and perhaps the only one who can help them—if he doesn't run away from home first.
Isidore’s unstinting empathy, combined with his simmering anger, makes for a complex character study, in which the elegiac and comedic build toward a heartbreaking conclusion. With How to Behave in a Crowd, Camille Bordas immerses readers in the interior life of a boy puzzled by adulthood and beginning to realize that the adults around him are just as lost".
Some questions to the author at Amazon:
"A Conversation with Camille Bordas, Author of 'How To Behave In A Crowd'
Q. Tell us about your inspiration for 'How To Behave In A Crowd.'
How to Behave in a Crowd doesn’t exactly rely on a big idea or concept, but more on its characters. I never have big ideas come to me out of nowhere. Or if I have one, it’s usually a bad sign—I get a little crushed by it and give up fast. For me, the writing of a novel often starts with a little voice I like and want to keep playing with. As far as the notion of 'inspiration' goes, I’m a firm subscriber to Picasso’s idea that inspiration is not really something you can count on, or that eventually will come to you from above or wherever, but that it is something that finds you at work. When I write, I never know in advance what’s going to happen, and you could say that what 'inspires' a sentence is nothing other than the one (or the few) that just preceded it. Sentence after sentence, narrative possibilities are either opening or closing, and part of my job is to be open to and keep track of them so that I can write the best possible version of my book. The problem with saying that the only things that inspire a new sentence are the ones I wrote before, though, is that you’re going to ask me, “Sure, but what about the very first sentence of the book, then? If all the others just stemmed from it, where did the first one come from?” and now I’m cornered. I don’t have a clever answer. It so happens that the very first page I wrote of this book ended up being the first of the finished novel as well, so I guess, in retrospect, that the day I wrote it ended up being pretty defining, but I don’t remember much about it. At the time, that first page was just a little thing I scribbled, an observation about suede that I decided for some reason to write down in the voice of a child. This first page describes something apparently trivial (there’s a stain on the family couch, but nobody knows who’s responsible for it, what it is a stain from, or when exactly it was made) and yet it is extremely important to the narrator, Isidore. It’s a page that introduces six core characters, Isidore and his five older siblings, by showing that the five eldest in question can’t even agree on something as small and meaningless as the author of a stain. It also presents Isidore—who is the only one to not have an idea about it because he was too young at the time the stain was made to remember—as dependent on his siblings for all kinds of information, big and small. The rest of the book covers about three years in Isidore’s life and goes in all sorts of directions, but it came out of Isidore’s character in that particular moment. I liked his obsession with this small thing that nobody around him seemed to care about.
Q. This is your first novel written in English. How did you come to the decision to write in English, and was the process different from writing in your native French?
I moved to the United States a few years ago and have barely spoken French to anyone since then. I speak French when I go back to France once a year, or on the phone with my mother, but other than that, English pretty much took over my life. In the end, writing in English wasn’t a big decision I made. It happened quite naturally. Weirdly, I didn’t find the process of writing a novel in English that much different than writing a novel in French. That’s probably because I see the process of writing a novel pretty much exactly as Doctorow describes it, as being similar to driving at night in the fog: you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. It makes the process seem both vertiginous and not at the same time. You never know where you are or where exactly you’re headed, but the way to get there is one sentence at a time, so that’s a manageable unit—and that’s how I wrote this novel, same as I would’ve written it in French, one sentence at a time. Obviously, having not grown up speaking English but having learned it in my late teens, there will always be words or phrases that I won’t only not know, but also not know that I don’t know, so that can be a little paralyzing if I think about it too much. Having a smaller vocabulary and fewer references at my disposal can also be a good thing, I think. I guess it can all be either extremely freeing or frustrating, depending on the kind of day I’m having. I have fewer tools than a native speaker, for sure, but I make do with what I’ve got. I know you don’t necessarily need gigantic means to reach big emotional effects. To riff on the Doctorow image, I feel that not being a native English speaker only means that my headlights are maybe a little dimmer than those of an American writer, but in a way that might be advantageous: it forces me to be even more focused and precise.
Q. The protagonist of 'How To Behave In A Crowd', Isidore Mazal, is eleven years old. How did writing the adults in the story differ from writing the children? Was one easier than the other?
Not really. I’m an adult now, so you might think it would require extra effort to put myself in the shoes of a preteen, but I actually remember being Isidore’s age quite vividly. I have learned a lot of things since then of course, but I actually don’t feel that much smarter than I was then.
Q. What do you hope readers will take away from 'How To Behave In A Crowd?'
I hope they take away a good memory of reading it, and a desire to maybe read it again down the line. I write books because I love books, and I don’t think the books that I love try to send me a message. I don’t really learn or expect to learn lessons from a novel. A good novel to me is time out from the world. It’s pretty precious.
Q. You recently published a short story in The New Yorker. How is your process different when writing a short story versus writing a novel?
I don’t know that I can really talk about it much because I have only written that one story. But what I can say is that, in writing it, there was more of a sense of urgency than in writing my novels. When I write novels, I tend to let myself explore and go to the (sometimes dead-) end of things. I’m always telling myself, We’ll see when the first draft is done whether this stays or not. But with the story, I was watching myself more. If I started writing a description of a room, for instance, I would ask myself right away, Well, does it matter to the story, the colors of the wall? and decide right then and there if it did or didn’t. A story is obviously easier to edit as you go. You can read the whole of it many times in a day of work, keep it in your head... You’re convinced that you could finish it any day, also, which is not the case with a novel. Writing that story was pretty intense, because it felt kind of like the last few weeks of writing a novel. You know you’re close to finishing, so that’s very exciting, but you also try to not get carried away, because any sentence could be the last, so you have to be extra careful.
Q. Who are some of the writers, or what are some of the books, that have most influenced you?
I never really understand what people mean by 'influence.' There are many, many, books that I love, but I’ve never necessarily felt that I was writing in the lineage of any of them in particular. That might be because I always read novels for pleasure and not for school or work. I never studied literature or writing; I never thought of dissecting a book I loved to see what made it work; I never deliberately riffed on or copied a writer I loved as an exercise, as I hear some American writers do in the course of their education. It just never crossed my mind. But surely I must have been influenced by writers I love, right? I don’t know which ones, though. I mean, one of my favorite books of all time is Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, but I challenge anyone to see its influence on my work... Same goes for Nabokov’s Ada or Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. Patrick deWitt and George Saunders make me laugh out loud, but I don’t feel at all like I’m in their lineage. I love Harry Crews’s Gypsy’s Curse, but unfortunately I could never come up with such a book. There are authors whose worldview I feel close to, though, like José Emilio Pacheco, Akhil Sharma, J. D. Salinger, Joan Didion, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lydia Davis, Édouard Levé, or Emmanuel Carrère (all of them very different from one another, by the way, but I guess every reader makes his or her own connections between writers, and I can sort of link them all somehow). I also read a lot of sociology, and I tend to believe that every writer (or maybe everyone, actually) should read Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life".
Link to The National Book Review of the novel:
https://www.thenationalbookreview.com/features/2017/11/8/review-a-young-french-boy-trapped-in-a-large-and-precocious-family
Link to NPR review of the book:
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/16/542469075/an-oddball-family-that-cant-connect-in-how-to-behave-in-a-crowd
Numerious links to reviews of the book:
https://www.google.com/search?q=camille+bordas+how+to+behave+in+a+crowd+a+novel&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS851US851&oq=how+to+behave+in+a+crowd+novel&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.6992j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Link to the book's page at GoodReads:
***I posted a question about the fight between Izzie and Porfi. Why did Victor join in on Izzie's side?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31951323-how-to-behave-in-a-crowd?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=LV40CHe0ob&rank=1
The book is somewhere between 'charming' and 'annoying'. I could go either way.
Reminded me of J.D. Salinger's 'The Glass Family'; NINE STORIES, RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, FRANNY AND ZOOEY, CARPENTERS AND SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION.
The novel is set in France, but it could have been set in Ohio or anywhere. None of the characters or the feel of the novel didn't evoke anything that was particularly French.
Isidore Mazal- the protagonist, 11 years old. The youngest of all the children.
***Bernice- the oldest and a PHD candidate. Gets a French one, and goes to Chicago for another. Was slated to be a teacher, but hides out in Paris and doesn't tell anyone what she's done.
***Aurore- also a PHD candidate. Gets pregnant.
***Jerome- composer and cello player. Certain musical passages make him laugh.
***Leonard- Writing a thesis about Loss and Family. It turns into an expose of The Mazal's.
***Simone- closest in age to Izzie (Dorry) and wants him to write her biography.
Mother- is devastated by the loss of 'The Father', Leaves his clothes in the closet with the door open. Wants Dorry to read to her. She isn't interested in content, but only his speaking voice.
'The Father'- this is the way he is always referred to. Knocked his teeth out falling down at work. Wears a suit to work and travels a lot. Had a painless heart attack and died suddenly.
Rose- Simone's pen pal, yet she ignores Rose and bonds with Dorry. Bad spelling, but speaks her heart.
"With How to Behave in a Crowd, Camille Bordas immerses readers in the interior life of a boy puzzled by adulthood and beginning to realize that the adults around him are just as lost. A witty, heartfelt novel that brilliantly evokes the confusions of adolescence and marks the arrival of an extraordinary young talent".
From the book's page on Amazon:
"Isidore Mazal is eleven years old, the youngest of six siblings living in a small French town. He doesn't quite fit in. Berenice, Aurore, and Leonard are on track to have doctorates by age twenty-four. Jeremie performs with a symphony, and Simone, older than Isidore by eighteen months, expects a great career as a novelist—she's already put Isidore to work on her biography. The only time they leave their rooms is to gather on the old, stained couch and dissect prime-time television dramas in light of Aristotle's Poetics.
Isidore has never skipped a grade or written a dissertation. But he notices things the others don't, and asks questions they fear to ask. So when tragedy strikes the Mazal family, Isidore is the only one to recognize how everyone is struggling with their grief, and perhaps the only one who can help them—if he doesn't run away from home first.
Isidore’s unstinting empathy, combined with his simmering anger, makes for a complex character study, in which the elegiac and comedic build toward a heartbreaking conclusion. With How to Behave in a Crowd, Camille Bordas immerses readers in the interior life of a boy puzzled by adulthood and beginning to realize that the adults around him are just as lost".
Some questions to the author at Amazon:
"A Conversation with Camille Bordas, Author of 'How To Behave In A Crowd'
Q. Tell us about your inspiration for 'How To Behave In A Crowd.'
How to Behave in a Crowd doesn’t exactly rely on a big idea or concept, but more on its characters. I never have big ideas come to me out of nowhere. Or if I have one, it’s usually a bad sign—I get a little crushed by it and give up fast. For me, the writing of a novel often starts with a little voice I like and want to keep playing with. As far as the notion of 'inspiration' goes, I’m a firm subscriber to Picasso’s idea that inspiration is not really something you can count on, or that eventually will come to you from above or wherever, but that it is something that finds you at work. When I write, I never know in advance what’s going to happen, and you could say that what 'inspires' a sentence is nothing other than the one (or the few) that just preceded it. Sentence after sentence, narrative possibilities are either opening or closing, and part of my job is to be open to and keep track of them so that I can write the best possible version of my book. The problem with saying that the only things that inspire a new sentence are the ones I wrote before, though, is that you’re going to ask me, “Sure, but what about the very first sentence of the book, then? If all the others just stemmed from it, where did the first one come from?” and now I’m cornered. I don’t have a clever answer. It so happens that the very first page I wrote of this book ended up being the first of the finished novel as well, so I guess, in retrospect, that the day I wrote it ended up being pretty defining, but I don’t remember much about it. At the time, that first page was just a little thing I scribbled, an observation about suede that I decided for some reason to write down in the voice of a child. This first page describes something apparently trivial (there’s a stain on the family couch, but nobody knows who’s responsible for it, what it is a stain from, or when exactly it was made) and yet it is extremely important to the narrator, Isidore. It’s a page that introduces six core characters, Isidore and his five older siblings, by showing that the five eldest in question can’t even agree on something as small and meaningless as the author of a stain. It also presents Isidore—who is the only one to not have an idea about it because he was too young at the time the stain was made to remember—as dependent on his siblings for all kinds of information, big and small. The rest of the book covers about three years in Isidore’s life and goes in all sorts of directions, but it came out of Isidore’s character in that particular moment. I liked his obsession with this small thing that nobody around him seemed to care about.
Q. This is your first novel written in English. How did you come to the decision to write in English, and was the process different from writing in your native French?
I moved to the United States a few years ago and have barely spoken French to anyone since then. I speak French when I go back to France once a year, or on the phone with my mother, but other than that, English pretty much took over my life. In the end, writing in English wasn’t a big decision I made. It happened quite naturally. Weirdly, I didn’t find the process of writing a novel in English that much different than writing a novel in French. That’s probably because I see the process of writing a novel pretty much exactly as Doctorow describes it, as being similar to driving at night in the fog: you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. It makes the process seem both vertiginous and not at the same time. You never know where you are or where exactly you’re headed, but the way to get there is one sentence at a time, so that’s a manageable unit—and that’s how I wrote this novel, same as I would’ve written it in French, one sentence at a time. Obviously, having not grown up speaking English but having learned it in my late teens, there will always be words or phrases that I won’t only not know, but also not know that I don’t know, so that can be a little paralyzing if I think about it too much. Having a smaller vocabulary and fewer references at my disposal can also be a good thing, I think. I guess it can all be either extremely freeing or frustrating, depending on the kind of day I’m having. I have fewer tools than a native speaker, for sure, but I make do with what I’ve got. I know you don’t necessarily need gigantic means to reach big emotional effects. To riff on the Doctorow image, I feel that not being a native English speaker only means that my headlights are maybe a little dimmer than those of an American writer, but in a way that might be advantageous: it forces me to be even more focused and precise.
Q. The protagonist of 'How To Behave In A Crowd', Isidore Mazal, is eleven years old. How did writing the adults in the story differ from writing the children? Was one easier than the other?
Not really. I’m an adult now, so you might think it would require extra effort to put myself in the shoes of a preteen, but I actually remember being Isidore’s age quite vividly. I have learned a lot of things since then of course, but I actually don’t feel that much smarter than I was then.
Q. What do you hope readers will take away from 'How To Behave In A Crowd?'
I hope they take away a good memory of reading it, and a desire to maybe read it again down the line. I write books because I love books, and I don’t think the books that I love try to send me a message. I don’t really learn or expect to learn lessons from a novel. A good novel to me is time out from the world. It’s pretty precious.
Q. You recently published a short story in The New Yorker. How is your process different when writing a short story versus writing a novel?
I don’t know that I can really talk about it much because I have only written that one story. But what I can say is that, in writing it, there was more of a sense of urgency than in writing my novels. When I write novels, I tend to let myself explore and go to the (sometimes dead-) end of things. I’m always telling myself, We’ll see when the first draft is done whether this stays or not. But with the story, I was watching myself more. If I started writing a description of a room, for instance, I would ask myself right away, Well, does it matter to the story, the colors of the wall? and decide right then and there if it did or didn’t. A story is obviously easier to edit as you go. You can read the whole of it many times in a day of work, keep it in your head... You’re convinced that you could finish it any day, also, which is not the case with a novel. Writing that story was pretty intense, because it felt kind of like the last few weeks of writing a novel. You know you’re close to finishing, so that’s very exciting, but you also try to not get carried away, because any sentence could be the last, so you have to be extra careful.
Q. Who are some of the writers, or what are some of the books, that have most influenced you?
I never really understand what people mean by 'influence.' There are many, many, books that I love, but I’ve never necessarily felt that I was writing in the lineage of any of them in particular. That might be because I always read novels for pleasure and not for school or work. I never studied literature or writing; I never thought of dissecting a book I loved to see what made it work; I never deliberately riffed on or copied a writer I loved as an exercise, as I hear some American writers do in the course of their education. It just never crossed my mind. But surely I must have been influenced by writers I love, right? I don’t know which ones, though. I mean, one of my favorite books of all time is Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, but I challenge anyone to see its influence on my work... Same goes for Nabokov’s Ada or Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. Patrick deWitt and George Saunders make me laugh out loud, but I don’t feel at all like I’m in their lineage. I love Harry Crews’s Gypsy’s Curse, but unfortunately I could never come up with such a book. There are authors whose worldview I feel close to, though, like José Emilio Pacheco, Akhil Sharma, J. D. Salinger, Joan Didion, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lydia Davis, Édouard Levé, or Emmanuel Carrère (all of them very different from one another, by the way, but I guess every reader makes his or her own connections between writers, and I can sort of link them all somehow). I also read a lot of sociology, and I tend to believe that every writer (or maybe everyone, actually) should read Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life".
Link to The National Book Review of the novel:
https://www.thenationalbookreview.com/features/2017/11/8/review-a-young-french-boy-trapped-in-a-large-and-precocious-family
Link to NPR review of the book:
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/16/542469075/an-oddball-family-that-cant-connect-in-how-to-behave-in-a-crowd
Numerious links to reviews of the book:
https://www.google.com/search?q=camille+bordas+how+to+behave+in+a+crowd+a+novel&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS851US851&oq=how+to+behave+in+a+crowd+novel&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.6992j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Link to the book's page at GoodReads:
***I posted a question about the fight between Izzie and Porfi. Why did Victor join in on Izzie's side?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31951323-how-to-behave-in-a-crowd?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=LV40CHe0ob&rank=1
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
SOMEONE by Alice McDermott
Finished Mo 12/9/19
This is a hardback that I ordered from Amazon on Mo 8/27/19. I got it because I really enjoyed her book , 'THE NINTH HOUR' which was a selection by the Contemporary Book Club.
This book was a "slow burning tour de force".
A strange story-line, but the character development was almost magical.
Basically the story of Marie, an Irish Catholic woman who lives in Brooklyn, NY during the early to late 20th century.
They live in a brownstone next to The Chehab's. A couple from Syria. Their daughter Pegeen who falls down the stairs and dies. This is how the novel begins. Marie's mother thinks that the couple, woman from Ireland and father from Syria, is very romantic.
Bill Corrigan is a veteran of WWII who lost most of his sight during the war. He is always dressed in a business suit and sits out on the sidewalk and is the umpire for the kids stick-ball games.
Gabe is Marie's older brother. He is studying for the priesthood. At the last moment, he decides it is not his vocation. He is probably a closeted gay man.
Dora Ryan is a woman who marries another woman. She thought that she was a man. This occurs when Marie is still a young girl and it leaves a lasting impression.
Gerty is Marie's closest childhood friend.
The link to the book's page at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_(McDermott_novel)
The Kirkus review online:
"McDermott’s brief seventh novel (Child of My Heart, 2002, etc.) follows seven decades of a Brooklyn woman’s modest life to create one of the author’s most trenchant explorations into the heart and soul of the 20th-century Irish-American family.
Sitting on the stoop of her apartment building, 7-year-old Marie watches her 1920s Brooklyn neighborhood through the thick glasses she already wears—her ability to see or missee those around her is one of the novel’s overriding metaphors. She revels in the stories of her neighbors, from the tragedy of Billy Corrigan, blinded in the war, to the great romance of the Chebabs’ Syrian-Irish marriage. Affectionately nicknamed the “little pagan” in contrast to her studious, spiritual older brother Gabe, Marie feels secure and loved within her own family despite her occasional battles of will against her mother. Cozy in their narrow apartment, her parents are proud that Marie’s father has a white-collar job as a clerk, and they have great hopes for Gabe, who is soon off to seminary to study for the priesthood. Marie’s Edenic childhood shatters when her adored father dies. In fact, death is never far from the surface of these lives, particularly since Maries works as a young woman with the local undertaker, a job that affords many more glimpses into her neighbors and more storytelling. By then, Gabe has left the priesthood, claiming it didn’t suit him and that his widowed mother needs him at home. Is he a failure or a quiet saint? After her heart is broken by a local boy who dumps her for a richer girl, Marie marries one of Gabe’s former parishioners, has children and eventually moves away from the neighborhood. Gabe remains. Marie’s straightforward narration is interrupted with occasional jumps back and forward in time that create both a sense of foreboding and continuity as well as a meditation on the nature of sorrow.
There is no high drama here, but Marie and Gabe are compelling in their basic goodness, as is McDermott’s elegy to a vanished world".
The fact that Marie finds a job at a local funeral parlor keeps death always in the focus of the novel.
Her boss at the funeral home is Mr. Fagin and he is a fan of Charles Dickens.
Marie is asked to marry a man that she barely knows, Walter Hartnett. The scene were he sucks on one of her breasts is an odd and strange high-point in the novel. He drops her almost without warning and merely for a woman who has more money and is better looking. He lays this out as if Marie would immediately agree.
Much later, Walter comes to the funeral home to pay respects to one of their friends and he is alcoholic and not very happy. But, obviously these two had no future.
Marie meets a friend of Gabe's and marries him. Tom didn't realize that Gabe was no longer a priest. Tom works at a brewery....beer and bier...
I loved the book and although the plot is really not as important as the rich character development.
The write up in GoodReads:
"An ordinary life - its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion - lived by an ordinary woman: This is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived, a crowning achievement by one of the finest American writers at work today.
An ordinary life - its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion - lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott's extraordinary return, seven years after the publication of After This. Scattered recollections - of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, old age - come together in this transformative narrative, stitched into a vibrant whole by McDermott's deft, lyrical voice.
Our first glimpse of Marie is as a child: a girl in glasses waiting on a Brooklyn stoop for her beloved father to come home from work. A seemingly innocuous encounter with a young woman named Pegeen sets the bittersweet tone of this remarkable novel. Pegeen describes herself as an "amadan," a fool; indeed, soon after her chat with Marie, Pegeen tumbles down her own basement stairs. The magic of McDermott's novel lies in how it reveals us all as fools for this or that, in one way or another.
Marie's first heartbreak and her eventual marriage; her brother's brief stint as a Catholic priest, subsequent loss of faith, and eventual breakdown; the Second World War; her parents' deaths; the births and lives of Marie's children; the changing world of her Irish-American enclave in Brooklyn - McDermott sketches all of it with sympathy and insight. This is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived; a crowning achievement by one of the finest American writers at work today".
The title comes at the end of Book One: After Walter Hartnett drops Marie...."Who's going to love me?...Someone".
This is a hardback that I ordered from Amazon on Mo 8/27/19. I got it because I really enjoyed her book , 'THE NINTH HOUR' which was a selection by the Contemporary Book Club.
This book was a "slow burning tour de force".
A strange story-line, but the character development was almost magical.
Basically the story of Marie, an Irish Catholic woman who lives in Brooklyn, NY during the early to late 20th century.
They live in a brownstone next to The Chehab's. A couple from Syria. Their daughter Pegeen who falls down the stairs and dies. This is how the novel begins. Marie's mother thinks that the couple, woman from Ireland and father from Syria, is very romantic.
Bill Corrigan is a veteran of WWII who lost most of his sight during the war. He is always dressed in a business suit and sits out on the sidewalk and is the umpire for the kids stick-ball games.
Gabe is Marie's older brother. He is studying for the priesthood. At the last moment, he decides it is not his vocation. He is probably a closeted gay man.
Dora Ryan is a woman who marries another woman. She thought that she was a man. This occurs when Marie is still a young girl and it leaves a lasting impression.
Gerty is Marie's closest childhood friend.
The link to the book's page at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_(McDermott_novel)
The Kirkus review online:
"McDermott’s brief seventh novel (Child of My Heart, 2002, etc.) follows seven decades of a Brooklyn woman’s modest life to create one of the author’s most trenchant explorations into the heart and soul of the 20th-century Irish-American family.
Sitting on the stoop of her apartment building, 7-year-old Marie watches her 1920s Brooklyn neighborhood through the thick glasses she already wears—her ability to see or missee those around her is one of the novel’s overriding metaphors. She revels in the stories of her neighbors, from the tragedy of Billy Corrigan, blinded in the war, to the great romance of the Chebabs’ Syrian-Irish marriage. Affectionately nicknamed the “little pagan” in contrast to her studious, spiritual older brother Gabe, Marie feels secure and loved within her own family despite her occasional battles of will against her mother. Cozy in their narrow apartment, her parents are proud that Marie’s father has a white-collar job as a clerk, and they have great hopes for Gabe, who is soon off to seminary to study for the priesthood. Marie’s Edenic childhood shatters when her adored father dies. In fact, death is never far from the surface of these lives, particularly since Maries works as a young woman with the local undertaker, a job that affords many more glimpses into her neighbors and more storytelling. By then, Gabe has left the priesthood, claiming it didn’t suit him and that his widowed mother needs him at home. Is he a failure or a quiet saint? After her heart is broken by a local boy who dumps her for a richer girl, Marie marries one of Gabe’s former parishioners, has children and eventually moves away from the neighborhood. Gabe remains. Marie’s straightforward narration is interrupted with occasional jumps back and forward in time that create both a sense of foreboding and continuity as well as a meditation on the nature of sorrow.
There is no high drama here, but Marie and Gabe are compelling in their basic goodness, as is McDermott’s elegy to a vanished world".
The fact that Marie finds a job at a local funeral parlor keeps death always in the focus of the novel.
Her boss at the funeral home is Mr. Fagin and he is a fan of Charles Dickens.
Marie is asked to marry a man that she barely knows, Walter Hartnett. The scene were he sucks on one of her breasts is an odd and strange high-point in the novel. He drops her almost without warning and merely for a woman who has more money and is better looking. He lays this out as if Marie would immediately agree.
Much later, Walter comes to the funeral home to pay respects to one of their friends and he is alcoholic and not very happy. But, obviously these two had no future.
Marie meets a friend of Gabe's and marries him. Tom didn't realize that Gabe was no longer a priest. Tom works at a brewery....beer and bier...
I loved the book and although the plot is really not as important as the rich character development.
The write up in GoodReads:
"An ordinary life - its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion - lived by an ordinary woman: This is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived, a crowning achievement by one of the finest American writers at work today.
An ordinary life - its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion - lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott's extraordinary return, seven years after the publication of After This. Scattered recollections - of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, old age - come together in this transformative narrative, stitched into a vibrant whole by McDermott's deft, lyrical voice.
Our first glimpse of Marie is as a child: a girl in glasses waiting on a Brooklyn stoop for her beloved father to come home from work. A seemingly innocuous encounter with a young woman named Pegeen sets the bittersweet tone of this remarkable novel. Pegeen describes herself as an "amadan," a fool; indeed, soon after her chat with Marie, Pegeen tumbles down her own basement stairs. The magic of McDermott's novel lies in how it reveals us all as fools for this or that, in one way or another.
Marie's first heartbreak and her eventual marriage; her brother's brief stint as a Catholic priest, subsequent loss of faith, and eventual breakdown; the Second World War; her parents' deaths; the births and lives of Marie's children; the changing world of her Irish-American enclave in Brooklyn - McDermott sketches all of it with sympathy and insight. This is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived; a crowning achievement by one of the finest American writers at work today".
The title comes at the end of Book One: After Walter Hartnett drops Marie...."Who's going to love me?...Someone".
Saturday, December 7, 2019
THE HUNGER by Whitley Strieber
Finished Fr 12/6/19
This is one of my ancient paperbacks and although there is no notation that I'd read it, I'm sure that I have. I also remember the fantastic movie, directed by Tony Scott, starring Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie.
From an internet article about the 1983 film:
"John (David Bowie) is the lover of the gorgeous immortal vampire Miriam (Catherine Deneuve), and he's been led to believe that he'll live forever, too. Unfortunately, he quickly deteriorates into a horrible living death, and Miriam seeks a new companion. She soon sets her sights on Sarah (Susan Sarandon), a lovely young scientist, who quickly falls under Miriam's spell. However, Sarah doesn't warm up to the concept of vampirism easily, leading to conflict with Miriam".
Miriam is a vampire that is a 'mirror species' to humankind. She was born somewhat before the Egyptian empire. She has 'infected' numerous human to become her companions over the ages and keeps their remains in sealed contains. She vows to 'love them until the end of time'.
John is her latest companion and he was 'chosen' about three hundred years ago. He is physically deteriorating and he needs to feed on human blood far to frequently to continue to remain hidden among humankind.
The vampires to not have elongated canine teeth, but Miriam uses a scalpel and needles to transfer the blood.
Miriam contacts Sarah who is a biologist specializing in Gerontology. Miriam will reveal scientific evidence about her non-human condition in hopes of learning a possible cure for John.
This doesn't come to pass, but Miriam finds that Sarah would become an excellent selection as her next companion 'through the ages'.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"Eternal youth is a wonderful thing for the few who have it, but for Miriam Blaylock, it is a curse -- an existence marred by death and sorrow. Because for the everlasting Miriam, everyone she loves withers and dies. Now, haunted by signs of her adoring husband's imminent demise, Miriam sets out in search of a new partner, one who can quench her thirst for love and withstand the test of time. She finds it in the beautiful Sarah Roberts, a brilliant young scientist who may hold the secret to immortality. But one thing stands between the intoxicating Miriam Blaylock and the object of her desire: Dr. Tom Haver...and he's about to realize that love and death to hand in hand".
I remember reading the book the first time and I was taken by a kind of soap that Miriam uses. It is a very flowery scent and was used in mortuaries to prevent guests from smelling the corpses when they were laid out for public viewing: BREHMER AND CROSS (to the trades).
I really loved the novel and it is strikingly different from the usual depiction of vampires. I liked the 'scientific' aspect of the vampires as a natural phenomenon. Vampires are just a different evolutionary path from human's simian ancestors.
Whitley Strieber is a controversial author and this is a link to his page on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitley_Strieber
This is one of my ancient paperbacks and although there is no notation that I'd read it, I'm sure that I have. I also remember the fantastic movie, directed by Tony Scott, starring Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie.
From an internet article about the 1983 film:
"John (David Bowie) is the lover of the gorgeous immortal vampire Miriam (Catherine Deneuve), and he's been led to believe that he'll live forever, too. Unfortunately, he quickly deteriorates into a horrible living death, and Miriam seeks a new companion. She soon sets her sights on Sarah (Susan Sarandon), a lovely young scientist, who quickly falls under Miriam's spell. However, Sarah doesn't warm up to the concept of vampirism easily, leading to conflict with Miriam".
Miriam is a vampire that is a 'mirror species' to humankind. She was born somewhat before the Egyptian empire. She has 'infected' numerous human to become her companions over the ages and keeps their remains in sealed contains. She vows to 'love them until the end of time'.
John is her latest companion and he was 'chosen' about three hundred years ago. He is physically deteriorating and he needs to feed on human blood far to frequently to continue to remain hidden among humankind.
The vampires to not have elongated canine teeth, but Miriam uses a scalpel and needles to transfer the blood.
Miriam contacts Sarah who is a biologist specializing in Gerontology. Miriam will reveal scientific evidence about her non-human condition in hopes of learning a possible cure for John.
This doesn't come to pass, but Miriam finds that Sarah would become an excellent selection as her next companion 'through the ages'.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"Eternal youth is a wonderful thing for the few who have it, but for Miriam Blaylock, it is a curse -- an existence marred by death and sorrow. Because for the everlasting Miriam, everyone she loves withers and dies. Now, haunted by signs of her adoring husband's imminent demise, Miriam sets out in search of a new partner, one who can quench her thirst for love and withstand the test of time. She finds it in the beautiful Sarah Roberts, a brilliant young scientist who may hold the secret to immortality. But one thing stands between the intoxicating Miriam Blaylock and the object of her desire: Dr. Tom Haver...and he's about to realize that love and death to hand in hand".
I remember reading the book the first time and I was taken by a kind of soap that Miriam uses. It is a very flowery scent and was used in mortuaries to prevent guests from smelling the corpses when they were laid out for public viewing: BREHMER AND CROSS (to the trades).
I really loved the novel and it is strikingly different from the usual depiction of vampires. I liked the 'scientific' aspect of the vampires as a natural phenomenon. Vampires are just a different evolutionary path from human's simian ancestors.
Whitley Strieber is a controversial author and this is a link to his page on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitley_Strieber
Monday, December 2, 2019
THE GRIFTERS by Jim Thompson
Refinished Su 12/1/19
This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first completed on Sa 1/27/01, and I bought the book at the library book sale on Sa 1/13/01. And, according to the flyleaf , I finished the book after I saw 'THE PLEDGE' at the Showplace. I tried to get this film at Netflix, but it is no longer available. It was a film directed by Sean Penn and starred Jack Nicholson.
The novel opens with a scene where Roy Dillon gets punched in the stomach with a bat after trying to run a 'short con'. He tried to pay for his drink at a soda counter with a twenty because he told the clerk he didn't have any change. The clerk gives him the change, and then Roy said, "Oh, I've got the change", and then tries to keep the change for the twenty and the twenty dollar bill.
Roy lives alone in a apartment in Los Angeles. He has a straight job and does the cons on the side.
Moira Langley is his girlfriend. She runs the 'long con' and this is revealed later in the novel. Moira wants a relationship with Roy- both professional and romantic, but Roy doesn't want to commit.
Lilly Dillon is Roy's mother. She had Roy when she was very young and liked to refer to Roy as her younger brother. She was abusive to the boy when he was younger. When he would get punched in the arm she'd say, "Oh Roy, ya only got one arm".
She re-enters Roy's life after after Roy was clubbed in the stomach. Lilly calls a doctor and they learn that unless he is hospitalized, Roy could die.
When he's let go from the hospital, Lilly hires Carol to be a nurse for Roy. Lilly picks this nurse because she hopes that Roy will become romantically involved.
Carol is a holocaust survivor of Dachau. Roy falls hard for Carol, but they break up. He treats her like a prostitute and Carol is offended. She says that their night together should be worth a bout thirty dollars which 'is the going rate'.
Roy uses his love of Carol as a possible path back to a normal life.
Lilly collects money for a Baltimore base mobster, Bobo. She places bets at the local racetrack. She skims from Bobo and he catches her and burns the back of her hand very badly with a cigarette.
Moira tracks Lilly to Tuscon and murders Lilly and makes it appear to be a suicide. Roy is contacted by the police and flies to Tuscon and puts together that it's not his mother because she doesn't have the burn on the back of her hand.
Lilly returns to LA and stole Roy's stash of money that he had hidden behind four clown paintings on the wall of his apartment.
Roy comes into the apartment as Lilly is stuffing a bag with the money. As they talk Lilly swings the bag, it breaks open and showers the apartment with money, and a glass table is broken and one of the shards slices Roy in the neck and he is bleeding to death as Lilly leaves with the money.
A well written novel and all of the characters are terribly flawed.
Jim Thompson's page at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_(writer)
The novel's page at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grifters_(novel)
In 1990 the film was made into a movie with Stephen Frears as the director. I've got it on top of my queue at Netflix and should get it by the end of the week.
This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first completed on Sa 1/27/01, and I bought the book at the library book sale on Sa 1/13/01. And, according to the flyleaf , I finished the book after I saw 'THE PLEDGE' at the Showplace. I tried to get this film at Netflix, but it is no longer available. It was a film directed by Sean Penn and starred Jack Nicholson.
The novel opens with a scene where Roy Dillon gets punched in the stomach with a bat after trying to run a 'short con'. He tried to pay for his drink at a soda counter with a twenty because he told the clerk he didn't have any change. The clerk gives him the change, and then Roy said, "Oh, I've got the change", and then tries to keep the change for the twenty and the twenty dollar bill.
Roy lives alone in a apartment in Los Angeles. He has a straight job and does the cons on the side.
Moira Langley is his girlfriend. She runs the 'long con' and this is revealed later in the novel. Moira wants a relationship with Roy- both professional and romantic, but Roy doesn't want to commit.
Lilly Dillon is Roy's mother. She had Roy when she was very young and liked to refer to Roy as her younger brother. She was abusive to the boy when he was younger. When he would get punched in the arm she'd say, "Oh Roy, ya only got one arm".
She re-enters Roy's life after after Roy was clubbed in the stomach. Lilly calls a doctor and they learn that unless he is hospitalized, Roy could die.
When he's let go from the hospital, Lilly hires Carol to be a nurse for Roy. Lilly picks this nurse because she hopes that Roy will become romantically involved.
Carol is a holocaust survivor of Dachau. Roy falls hard for Carol, but they break up. He treats her like a prostitute and Carol is offended. She says that their night together should be worth a bout thirty dollars which 'is the going rate'.
Roy uses his love of Carol as a possible path back to a normal life.
Lilly collects money for a Baltimore base mobster, Bobo. She places bets at the local racetrack. She skims from Bobo and he catches her and burns the back of her hand very badly with a cigarette.
Moira tracks Lilly to Tuscon and murders Lilly and makes it appear to be a suicide. Roy is contacted by the police and flies to Tuscon and puts together that it's not his mother because she doesn't have the burn on the back of her hand.
Lilly returns to LA and stole Roy's stash of money that he had hidden behind four clown paintings on the wall of his apartment.
Roy comes into the apartment as Lilly is stuffing a bag with the money. As they talk Lilly swings the bag, it breaks open and showers the apartment with money, and a glass table is broken and one of the shards slices Roy in the neck and he is bleeding to death as Lilly leaves with the money.
A well written novel and all of the characters are terribly flawed.
Jim Thompson's page at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_(writer)
The novel's page at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grifters_(novel)
In 1990 the film was made into a movie with Stephen Frears as the director. I've got it on top of my queue at Netflix and should get it by the end of the week.
Saturday, November 30, 2019
CHAMELEON by William Diehl
Finished THANKSGIVING DAY, Th 11/28/19
This is an ancient paperback that I found on the shelves. It was released in 1981, and features "Assassins, Spies, And The Exotic Oriental Arts Of Love And Death".
It's really about corporate espionage.
After WWII there was a Japanese agent who was in-charge of surveillance. This man was deadly in the martial arts. He formed a secret group that lasted through the 70's.
The American General Hooker becomes head of a large oil company and he uses this group.
The general was forced to leave his son behind when he was forced to leave Asia when the Japanese were winning near the end of WWII. The son becomes 'the new' Chameleon.
O'Hara is an ex-CIA agent and newspaper reporter.
He infiltrates this group.
Eliza Gunn is a newspaper writer who spearheads this effort.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"The deadliest secret assassin to ever roam the globe. Now, crack reporters Frank O'Hara and Eliza Gunn are hot on his trail. To unmask him, they untangle a many-colored web of espionage and computer intrigue--amid the tantalizing Oriental arts of love and death...".
The following is part of a customer review at Amazon, and I fully agree with this observation:
"The first few chapters looked pretty good but after that the plot became devious, frequently unbelievable and difficult to follow. There were scenes and characters that didn't add to the plot, and baddies turned out to be goodies and goodies turned out to be baddies. The technology part of the story has dated a lot as things have changed greatly since Diehl wrote the book in the 1970's or 1980's".
This is an ancient paperback that I found on the shelves. It was released in 1981, and features "Assassins, Spies, And The Exotic Oriental Arts Of Love And Death".
It's really about corporate espionage.
After WWII there was a Japanese agent who was in-charge of surveillance. This man was deadly in the martial arts. He formed a secret group that lasted through the 70's.
The American General Hooker becomes head of a large oil company and he uses this group.
The general was forced to leave his son behind when he was forced to leave Asia when the Japanese were winning near the end of WWII. The son becomes 'the new' Chameleon.
O'Hara is an ex-CIA agent and newspaper reporter.
He infiltrates this group.
Eliza Gunn is a newspaper writer who spearheads this effort.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"The deadliest secret assassin to ever roam the globe. Now, crack reporters Frank O'Hara and Eliza Gunn are hot on his trail. To unmask him, they untangle a many-colored web of espionage and computer intrigue--amid the tantalizing Oriental arts of love and death...".
The following is part of a customer review at Amazon, and I fully agree with this observation:
"The first few chapters looked pretty good but after that the plot became devious, frequently unbelievable and difficult to follow. There were scenes and characters that didn't add to the plot, and baddies turned out to be goodies and goodies turned out to be baddies. The technology part of the story has dated a lot as things have changed greatly since Diehl wrote the book in the 1970's or 1980's".
From the author's page at Wikipedia:
"Diehl was a successful photographer and journalist, when he began his novel-writing career at 50. His first novel, Sharky's Machine, was made into the 1981 film of the same name, directed and starred Burt Reynolds. Diehl saw it being shot on location in and around his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Its cast included Vittorio Gassman, Brian Keith, Charles Durning, Earl Holliman, Rachel Ward, Bernie Casey, Henry Silva, and Richard Libertini. It was the most successful box-office release of a film directed by Reynolds.
Diehl relocated to St. Simons Island, Georgia, in the early 1980s, and lived there for the next 15 years before returning to Atlanta. While living on St. Simons, he completed eight other novels, including Primal Fear, which was adapted into a 1996 film.
Diehl died of an aortic aneurysm at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on November 24, 2006, while working on his 10th novel."
The writing style is very rooted in the 60's and 70's, but I like these kind of novels every once and a while. There are never any weird shifts in time or multiple points of view that seem to be so popular these days.
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
WHISKEY WHEN WE'RE DRY by John Larison
Finished Tu 11/19/19
Contemporary Book Club Selection, November- 2019
Lonesome Dove/ Blood Meridian/ Deadwood; Classic Western with contemporary readers in mind. "Brokeback Mountain"- short story by Annie Proulx.
"That line hints at the novel’s main thematic material: the mythology of the Wild West and the intersection of violence and masculinity".
Took Larison ten years to write. Has a book about fly fishing in Oregon. He's from Oregon.
Will be a movie; ten part series by the husband and wife directors of 'the new' PLANET OF THE APES.
Robin Weigert, actress who plays Calamity Jane on DEADWOOD.
Title from 'Tennessee' a song by Gillian Welch on the album, 'THE HARROW & THE HARVEST'
Started out as an examination of masculinity. "All the men I know are doing the best impression of being a man that they know": quote from the author. Not writing from a girl's point of view. She's just a person. People whose identities 'do not fit into boxes'. Charley Parkhurst a woman who 'passed' as men. Got tongue cancer and his true identity was revealed.
"How would a man do this"? When Jess takes up tobacco and liquor.
One of the hardest scenes to write. Jess is taken to a whorehouse and the woman makes her pay to keep her secret.
Noah is inspired by John Brown, abolitionist.
Jess is from eastern Oregon. Places Utah, Wyoming. Political boundaries were in flux at the time. Territorial politics are a part of the story- the governor.
The change from The Wild West to The Corporate West. This happened in the 1880's.
Butch Cassidy waged a war against corporate America. Noah is not quite the hero. Someone else in the gang was really running the show- Annette.
http://www.harvardreview.org/book-review/whiskey-when-were-dry/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Parkhurst
First woman to vote in a presidential election in the US; November, 1868.
“Pearlsville was the biggest city I ever saw. It was where the gold and timber and beef that drained from them mountains met the straight current of the Union Pacific. The railroad had spawned wealthy businessmen with employment to offer, which done brought workingmen with their families, falling to this after their dreams of homesteading had worn thin.”
As for the unusual title, it reflects not only its literal meaning—whiskey is a big player in this cold, cruel world—but also its metaphorical one. Jesse describes it thusly:
“A potent whiskey come over me then, all at once. It poured from their eyes when those eyes flinched from me. In that whiskey was proof I too was made of grit and gravel and could not be blown from this earth by simple winds. I racked the Winchester, and for once found what I was after all those times I tipped a bottle.”
Jesse is a sharpshooter. Her brother's Wild Bunch is as much a religious cult as it is a gang.
Jesse goes full-on Amazon when she needs to, and there are elements of "Mad Max on the American frontier." Violence is casual, catastrophic and personal. Identity and gender are fluid. The action and the emotion swings from tight focus to sprawling panorama.
I think what moved me most about this book was it's deep empathy for its characters, including people who are usually silent in the genre: badass women, LGBT gunslingers, people of color. Even the familiar character types (charismatic preacher, rich girl, rowdy cowboy) are deepened as they make surprising choices and turn in new directions.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/john-larison/
Interviews with the author:
https://www.johnlarison.com/
“A man can be invisible when he wants to be".
“Men is all the time hiding behind words”; “Being a boss is always knowing your true size”
https://www.johnlarison.com/home
Contemporary Book Club Selection, November- 2019
Lonesome Dove/ Blood Meridian/ Deadwood; Classic Western with contemporary readers in mind. "Brokeback Mountain"- short story by Annie Proulx.
"That line hints at the novel’s main thematic material: the mythology of the Wild West and the intersection of violence and masculinity".
Took Larison ten years to write. Has a book about fly fishing in Oregon. He's from Oregon.
Will be a movie; ten part series by the husband and wife directors of 'the new' PLANET OF THE APES.
Robin Weigert, actress who plays Calamity Jane on DEADWOOD.
Title from 'Tennessee' a song by Gillian Welch on the album, 'THE HARROW & THE HARVEST'
Started out as an examination of masculinity. "All the men I know are doing the best impression of being a man that they know": quote from the author. Not writing from a girl's point of view. She's just a person. People whose identities 'do not fit into boxes'. Charley Parkhurst a woman who 'passed' as men. Got tongue cancer and his true identity was revealed.
"How would a man do this"? When Jess takes up tobacco and liquor.
One of the hardest scenes to write. Jess is taken to a whorehouse and the woman makes her pay to keep her secret.
Noah is inspired by John Brown, abolitionist.
Jess is from eastern Oregon. Places Utah, Wyoming. Political boundaries were in flux at the time. Territorial politics are a part of the story- the governor.
The change from The Wild West to The Corporate West. This happened in the 1880's.
Butch Cassidy waged a war against corporate America. Noah is not quite the hero. Someone else in the gang was really running the show- Annette.
http://www.harvardreview.org/book-review/whiskey-when-were-dry/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Parkhurst
First woman to vote in a presidential election in the US; November, 1868.
“Pearlsville was the biggest city I ever saw. It was where the gold and timber and beef that drained from them mountains met the straight current of the Union Pacific. The railroad had spawned wealthy businessmen with employment to offer, which done brought workingmen with their families, falling to this after their dreams of homesteading had worn thin.”
As for the unusual title, it reflects not only its literal meaning—whiskey is a big player in this cold, cruel world—but also its metaphorical one. Jesse describes it thusly:
“A potent whiskey come over me then, all at once. It poured from their eyes when those eyes flinched from me. In that whiskey was proof I too was made of grit and gravel and could not be blown from this earth by simple winds. I racked the Winchester, and for once found what I was after all those times I tipped a bottle.”
Jesse is a sharpshooter. Her brother's Wild Bunch is as much a religious cult as it is a gang.
Jesse goes full-on Amazon when she needs to, and there are elements of "Mad Max on the American frontier." Violence is casual, catastrophic and personal. Identity and gender are fluid. The action and the emotion swings from tight focus to sprawling panorama.
I think what moved me most about this book was it's deep empathy for its characters, including people who are usually silent in the genre: badass women, LGBT gunslingers, people of color. Even the familiar character types (charismatic preacher, rich girl, rowdy cowboy) are deepened as they make surprising choices and turn in new directions.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/john-larison/
Interviews with the author:
https://www.johnlarison.com/
“A man can be invisible when he wants to be".
“Men is all the time hiding behind words”; “Being a boss is always knowing your true size”
https://www.johnlarison.com/home
Sunday, November 3, 2019
BODY SURFING by Anita Shreve
Finished Sa 11/2/19
This is a trade paperback that Janny loaned me. Shreve is an author that wrote 'THE PILOT'S WIFE', and was a part of Oprah's book club.
I loved this novel! It's a real page turner, but not plot driven. Just well written characters that collide in the surf of life....hence the title.
Sydney Sklar- a woman of 29 who is drifting through life. She is once divorced and once widowed. The test pilot lived and the doctor died of a heart attack in his forties.
Mr. and Mrs. Edwards have a beach house on the New Hampshire coast.
Sydney has been hired to help their eighteen year old daughter, Julie, study for college boards. Julie is mentally challenged but Sydney learns that she tremendous artistic abilities.
Mrs. Edwards takes an instant dislike to Sydney. She resents the fact that Sydney has fallen for her son, Jeff, and that Sydney is part Jewish. Mrs. Edwards is always cold to Sydney.
Mr. Edwards is very warm to Sydney. He shares the history of the house with her. The house was a nunnery, a home for unwed mothers, the home of a famous female writer, and the home where three sons were lost to WWII.
Ben is a wealthy real estate developer. Jeff is a Harvard political science professor.
Jeff becomes attracted to Sydney and he asks her to marry him.
******He is only doing this because he feels that his older brother, Ben, is attracted to Sydney. He continues to deceive Sydney and goes all the way through the courtship and right up until the morning of the wedding before he admits that the love affair was just a game to beat Ben.
Two years later Sydney comes back to the beach home because she was attending a conference in the area, and learns that Mr. Edwards has died, and Mrs. Edwards has put the home on the market.
Sydney had no contact with any of the family members even though all (except Mrs. Edwards) had written to her.
Ben finds Sydney asleep on the beach and tells her the news. And, it seems that a love affair might begin again.
*****Sydney was turned off to Ben on the first day that she met the boys. They were body surfing and she thought that she was groped by Ben, but it was Jeff that did it.
Sydney has a final dinner with the family and Mrs. Edwards admits that she has always disliked Sydney and never apologizes.
Ben takes Sydney to a small island near the house that he has purchased a small cabin that he will use as a summer home.
Ben and Sydney body surf for the last time that the Edwards will own the home.
Mr. Edwards leaves Sydney a box of paperwork about the history of the house. Mrs. Edwards gives this box to Sydney and did not even look to see what the box contained. She disdains anything dealing with Sydney even though she is aware of her dead husband's affection for Sydney.
I loved the book and will ask Janny for more by this author, and I will probably see what's for sale at Amazon.
From the author's page at Amazon:
"At the age of 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing once again, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage.
But when the Edwards' two grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up in a destructive web of old tensions and bitter divisions. As the brothers vie for her affections, the fragile existence Sydney has rebuilt for herself is threatened. With the subtle wit, lyrical language, and brilliant insight into the human heart that has led her to be called "an author at one with her métier" (Miami Herald), Shreve weaves a novel about marriage, family, and the supreme courage that it takes to love."
The author's page at wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Shreve
This is a trade paperback that Janny loaned me. Shreve is an author that wrote 'THE PILOT'S WIFE', and was a part of Oprah's book club.
I loved this novel! It's a real page turner, but not plot driven. Just well written characters that collide in the surf of life....hence the title.
Sydney Sklar- a woman of 29 who is drifting through life. She is once divorced and once widowed. The test pilot lived and the doctor died of a heart attack in his forties.
Mr. and Mrs. Edwards have a beach house on the New Hampshire coast.
Sydney has been hired to help their eighteen year old daughter, Julie, study for college boards. Julie is mentally challenged but Sydney learns that she tremendous artistic abilities.
Mrs. Edwards takes an instant dislike to Sydney. She resents the fact that Sydney has fallen for her son, Jeff, and that Sydney is part Jewish. Mrs. Edwards is always cold to Sydney.
Mr. Edwards is very warm to Sydney. He shares the history of the house with her. The house was a nunnery, a home for unwed mothers, the home of a famous female writer, and the home where three sons were lost to WWII.
Ben is a wealthy real estate developer. Jeff is a Harvard political science professor.
Jeff becomes attracted to Sydney and he asks her to marry him.
******He is only doing this because he feels that his older brother, Ben, is attracted to Sydney. He continues to deceive Sydney and goes all the way through the courtship and right up until the morning of the wedding before he admits that the love affair was just a game to beat Ben.
Two years later Sydney comes back to the beach home because she was attending a conference in the area, and learns that Mr. Edwards has died, and Mrs. Edwards has put the home on the market.
Sydney had no contact with any of the family members even though all (except Mrs. Edwards) had written to her.
Ben finds Sydney asleep on the beach and tells her the news. And, it seems that a love affair might begin again.
*****Sydney was turned off to Ben on the first day that she met the boys. They were body surfing and she thought that she was groped by Ben, but it was Jeff that did it.
Sydney has a final dinner with the family and Mrs. Edwards admits that she has always disliked Sydney and never apologizes.
Ben takes Sydney to a small island near the house that he has purchased a small cabin that he will use as a summer home.
Ben and Sydney body surf for the last time that the Edwards will own the home.
Mr. Edwards leaves Sydney a box of paperwork about the history of the house. Mrs. Edwards gives this box to Sydney and did not even look to see what the box contained. She disdains anything dealing with Sydney even though she is aware of her dead husband's affection for Sydney.
I loved the book and will ask Janny for more by this author, and I will probably see what's for sale at Amazon.
From the author's page at Amazon:
"At the age of 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing once again, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage.
But when the Edwards' two grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up in a destructive web of old tensions and bitter divisions. As the brothers vie for her affections, the fragile existence Sydney has rebuilt for herself is threatened. With the subtle wit, lyrical language, and brilliant insight into the human heart that has led her to be called "an author at one with her métier" (Miami Herald), Shreve weaves a novel about marriage, family, and the supreme courage that it takes to love."
The author's page at wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Shreve
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
HALF OF PARADISE by James Lee Burke
Finished Tu 10/29/19
This is one of Burke's 'stand alone' novels and is not tied to one of his series. I received this from Amazon on Fr 9/13/19.
I'm surprised he called this book 'Half Of Paradise' since it really should be 'A THIRD OF PARADISE' because it deals with three principal characters.
1) Avery Broussard- He is from a family that used to own a big cotton farm, but now it's only fifty or so acres. Avery works on the oil rigs off the Louisiana/ Texas coasts. He comes back to help his father work the farm. His father dies and he gets involved with smuggling booze. He gets caught while trying to load booze on a boat. The DEA is waiting. When he gets out, he reacquaints with his teenage girlfriend, Suzanne. They have a tender love affair until Avery gets a DUI while on parole and ends up to finish his sentence. Suzanne's last name is ' Robicheaux'.
2) J. P. Winfield- He is a musician that finds a promoter and ends up a fairly popular country-western singer. He gets hooked on drugs and becomes an alcoholic. He gets a backup singer, April, pregnant and marries her. He continues to visit prostitutes, drink heavily, and ends up dying of a heart attack. His promoter books him on a tour to promote a segregationist politicians.
3) Toussaint Boudreaux- He is a black longshoreman that is trying to make his way as a professional fighter. During a fight he breaks his had and can no longer do his day job or fight. He ends up driving a truck and is set up. They send him out with a load of stolen furs. They want the police to be tied up with his arrest while they can get through with the more expensive stolen items. He ends up in one of the large prison work farms (Angola) and is shot to death while trying to escape.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"Toussaint Boudreaux, a black docker in New Orleans, puts up with his co-workers' racism because he has to, and moonlights as a prize-fighter in the hope of a better life-but the only break he gets lands him in penal servitude. J.P. Winfield, a hick with a gift for twelve-string guitar, finds his break into show-biz leads to the flipside of the American dream. Avery Broussard, descendant of an aristocratic French family, runs whiskey when what remains of his land is repossessed...
The interlocking stories of these three men are an elegy to the realities of life in 1950s Louisiana, their destinies fixed by the circumstances of their birth and time. Yet each carries the hope of redemption..."
I thought the book was very well written and although the story skips between the three men it's easy to follow and very interesting and compelling.
It's very grim and none of the men end up in a happy place. Two die tragically and one returns to prison.
This is one of Burke's 'stand alone' novels and is not tied to one of his series. I received this from Amazon on Fr 9/13/19.
I'm surprised he called this book 'Half Of Paradise' since it really should be 'A THIRD OF PARADISE' because it deals with three principal characters.
1) Avery Broussard- He is from a family that used to own a big cotton farm, but now it's only fifty or so acres. Avery works on the oil rigs off the Louisiana/ Texas coasts. He comes back to help his father work the farm. His father dies and he gets involved with smuggling booze. He gets caught while trying to load booze on a boat. The DEA is waiting. When he gets out, he reacquaints with his teenage girlfriend, Suzanne. They have a tender love affair until Avery gets a DUI while on parole and ends up to finish his sentence. Suzanne's last name is ' Robicheaux'.
2) J. P. Winfield- He is a musician that finds a promoter and ends up a fairly popular country-western singer. He gets hooked on drugs and becomes an alcoholic. He gets a backup singer, April, pregnant and marries her. He continues to visit prostitutes, drink heavily, and ends up dying of a heart attack. His promoter books him on a tour to promote a segregationist politicians.
3) Toussaint Boudreaux- He is a black longshoreman that is trying to make his way as a professional fighter. During a fight he breaks his had and can no longer do his day job or fight. He ends up driving a truck and is set up. They send him out with a load of stolen furs. They want the police to be tied up with his arrest while they can get through with the more expensive stolen items. He ends up in one of the large prison work farms (Angola) and is shot to death while trying to escape.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"Toussaint Boudreaux, a black docker in New Orleans, puts up with his co-workers' racism because he has to, and moonlights as a prize-fighter in the hope of a better life-but the only break he gets lands him in penal servitude. J.P. Winfield, a hick with a gift for twelve-string guitar, finds his break into show-biz leads to the flipside of the American dream. Avery Broussard, descendant of an aristocratic French family, runs whiskey when what remains of his land is repossessed...
The interlocking stories of these three men are an elegy to the realities of life in 1950s Louisiana, their destinies fixed by the circumstances of their birth and time. Yet each carries the hope of redemption..."
I thought the book was very well written and although the story skips between the three men it's easy to follow and very interesting and compelling.
It's very grim and none of the men end up in a happy place. Two die tragically and one returns to prison.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
CAMINO ISLAND by John Grisham
Finished Sa 10/26/19
This is a 2017 hardback that Janny loaned to me.
The novel is set on Santa Rosa Island which is about fifty miles east of Pensacola, Florida.
My personal takeaway from the book is the 'split' in the fiction genre:
1) LITERARY FICTION
2) POPULAR FICTION
Popular fiction writers try for more critical acclaim, and literary fiction authors yearn for more popularity. Obviously, it doesn't have to be one or the other, but writers should strive to be both. John D. McDonald and James Lee Burke are authors that are both celebrated by critics and are very popular to the general public.
The novel begins with a gang of five men who steal the early and original manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald from the secured rare books department at Princeton University. During the highly professional heist, one of the robbers leaves a drop of blood and this leads to the arrest of two of the gang.
The works were insured for twenty five million dollars and the insurance company believes that a rare books seller, Bruce Cable, has possession of the manuscripts. He owns a well known bookstore at Santa Rosa, FL.
An agent of the insurance company contacts Mercer Mann who is a struggling writer who had a successful first novel, but is now teaching and trying to grind out a follow-up. The company will pay off her student loan debt if she will infiltrate Cable's store and see if he really has the manuscripts. Mercer lived for many years with her grandmother, Tessa, on the island.
It's a great story about the book selling business, the black market for stolen manuscripts, and how writers are in social situations and how they create their books.
In the end, Bruce Cable is able to get the books out of the store and smuggles them to Paris where he arranges an exchange with the insurance company for millions of dollars. He eludes the trap that state and federal authorities had planned based on Mercer's investigation.
I would like to read almost all of the classic novels that are mentioned in the book. I located a copy of 'BLOOD MERIDIAN' by Cormac McCarthy in my collection and might try to wade through it. However, it's part of a three novel compilation by McCarthy and I'd have to get it from the library and put it on the phone. Far to heavy to lug around. Mercer Mann mentions that she tried to read the book, but was turned off by the violence.
The novel's page at wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_Island
This is a 2017 hardback that Janny loaned to me.
The novel is set on Santa Rosa Island which is about fifty miles east of Pensacola, Florida.
My personal takeaway from the book is the 'split' in the fiction genre:
1) LITERARY FICTION
2) POPULAR FICTION
Popular fiction writers try for more critical acclaim, and literary fiction authors yearn for more popularity. Obviously, it doesn't have to be one or the other, but writers should strive to be both. John D. McDonald and James Lee Burke are authors that are both celebrated by critics and are very popular to the general public.
The novel begins with a gang of five men who steal the early and original manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald from the secured rare books department at Princeton University. During the highly professional heist, one of the robbers leaves a drop of blood and this leads to the arrest of two of the gang.
The works were insured for twenty five million dollars and the insurance company believes that a rare books seller, Bruce Cable, has possession of the manuscripts. He owns a well known bookstore at Santa Rosa, FL.
An agent of the insurance company contacts Mercer Mann who is a struggling writer who had a successful first novel, but is now teaching and trying to grind out a follow-up. The company will pay off her student loan debt if she will infiltrate Cable's store and see if he really has the manuscripts. Mercer lived for many years with her grandmother, Tessa, on the island.
It's a great story about the book selling business, the black market for stolen manuscripts, and how writers are in social situations and how they create their books.
In the end, Bruce Cable is able to get the books out of the store and smuggles them to Paris where he arranges an exchange with the insurance company for millions of dollars. He eludes the trap that state and federal authorities had planned based on Mercer's investigation.
I would like to read almost all of the classic novels that are mentioned in the book. I located a copy of 'BLOOD MERIDIAN' by Cormac McCarthy in my collection and might try to wade through it. However, it's part of a three novel compilation by McCarthy and I'd have to get it from the library and put it on the phone. Far to heavy to lug around. Mercer Mann mentions that she tried to read the book, but was turned off by the violence.
The novel's page at wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_Island
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
THE KINSHIP OF SECRETS by Eugenia Kim
Finished Tu 10/22/19- October, 2019 selection for the Contemporary Book Club
Notes from a YouTube interview with Eugenia Kim:
Based on Kim's real sister. To this day she doesn't know that she was adopted. She has dementia.
"Blackest Day of My Life". Really didn't eat on the plane to US.
Real grandmother lost all of her toenails to frostbite. She brought rice to her daughter in Japanese prison. Included a bible verse in the food.
Real sister came over when Kim was five and sister was eleven. Later they lived together in college and still never talked about it.
2005 went to Korea to research her book and sister went as translator. The trip was very distressing because she remembered that for two years when she came to America she dreamed about going back to Korea. She had a full happy live in Korea- Very close to family.
Didn't go back until early twenties, but she married a man that had business interests in Korea and they would go back each year.
She's available to book clubs via Skype. She brings Korean dumplings if it's in the area. Lives in Tacoma Park, MD.
Calvin separated for nine years during WWII. He was studying theology in US.
Wife in jail for three months because the Japanese thought that she must be a spy since husband in US.
because he was working for the army he was able to get a travel visa after the war. Wanted to bring his wife because of this separation.
Inja has the emotional support in Korea.
Wife is collecting book of American colloquialisms.
Secrets kept not out of malice, but for protection.
Do you protect the person that it had been kept for so long? That can damage as well.
Thought the would be in US a year or two, but it was fifteen years.
Inja misses her uncle greatly.
Book teaches about the Korean war. Korean war isn't that widely told and the veterans are dying.
"Always trauma when you leave a country (as in immigration)- Loss is always part of the picture".
Took her seven years to write this book- 15 years for the first book, CALLIGRAPHER'S DAUGHTER. She was a graphic designer and a 'complicated' son. Only able to write a couple of hours a day.
Notes from a YouTube interview with Eugenia Kim:
Based on Kim's real sister. To this day she doesn't know that she was adopted. She has dementia.
"Blackest Day of My Life". Really didn't eat on the plane to US.
Real grandmother lost all of her toenails to frostbite. She brought rice to her daughter in Japanese prison. Included a bible verse in the food.
Real sister came over when Kim was five and sister was eleven. Later they lived together in college and still never talked about it.
2005 went to Korea to research her book and sister went as translator. The trip was very distressing because she remembered that for two years when she came to America she dreamed about going back to Korea. She had a full happy live in Korea- Very close to family.
Didn't go back until early twenties, but she married a man that had business interests in Korea and they would go back each year.
She's available to book clubs via Skype. She brings Korean dumplings if it's in the area. Lives in Tacoma Park, MD.
Calvin separated for nine years during WWII. He was studying theology in US.
Wife in jail for three months because the Japanese thought that she must be a spy since husband in US.
because he was working for the army he was able to get a travel visa after the war. Wanted to bring his wife because of this separation.
Inja has the emotional support in Korea.
Wife is collecting book of American colloquialisms.
Secrets kept not out of malice, but for protection.
Do you protect the person that it had been kept for so long? That can damage as well.
Thought the would be in US a year or two, but it was fifteen years.
Inja misses her uncle greatly.
Book teaches about the Korean war. Korean war isn't that widely told and the veterans are dying.
"Always trauma when you leave a country (as in immigration)- Loss is always part of the picture".
Took her seven years to write this book- 15 years for the first book, CALLIGRAPHER'S DAUGHTER. She was a graphic designer and a 'complicated' son. Only able to write a couple of hours a day.
**********
Can't leave the adopted child because that would be a signal that they wouldn't return.
'Darkest Day' when she was separated from her uncle. The US family she only knew by photos and packages.
Cook and Yun left behind because they thought they would only be gone a week.
*****Eugenia Kim is also a designer of women's accessories, bags, and hats.
Can't leave the adopted child because that would be a signal that they wouldn't return.
'Darkest Day' when she was separated from her uncle. The US family she only knew by photos and packages.
Cook and Yun left behind because they thought they would only be gone a week.
*****Eugenia Kim is also a designer of women's accessories, bags, and hats.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
DEAD FOLKS BLUES by Steven Womack
Finished We 10/16/19
One of my ancient paperbacks and according to the flyleaf I first finished the book on Fr 8/2/96, 'on weeks suspension'.....Ah, those were the days!
Introducing the character of Harry James Denton. He lives in Nashville, TN and is an ex-newspaperman. He was fired when he wrote a story about city corruption and it was published.
He's struggling for work and lives in a rented room in a house owned by an old nearly deaf woman on 'the wrong side of town'. He has to mow the lawn for part of his rent. He rents a very small room as his office space.
His first client, Rachel, is an old girlfriend. She knew him when they went to college and he knew her future husband, Conrad Fletcher. This man went on to become a very wealthy surgeon, but much despised in the medical community.
Lonnie is a friend of Harry's who repossesses vehicles and he also likes to blow things up. He knows a lot about computers and searching The Net.
Walter is also a friend of Harry's. They play intense games of racket ball. Harry sprains his ankle during one of their games.
Bubba is a 300 pound convenience store owner, ex-preacher and bookie. Conrad is a compulsive gambler and owes Bubba about a hundred grand.
Mr. Kennedy is a mountain of muscle, ex-athlete and Bubba's protection
SYNOPSIS:
Rachel and Walter are lovers. They kill Conrad for the insurance money.
Harry was at the hospital at the time of the murder. He went into a hospital room just after a nurse had left. This nurse was Rachel in disguise and she was too far away for Harry to really see her. As Harry leaned over the body of Conrad, he was hit on the head and knocked out by Walter.
From the book's page at GoodReads:
"EDGAR AWARD WINNER--Best Paperback Original Mystery 1993.
When Rachel Fletcher, an old college flame, enters Harry James Denton's office needing his private detecting services, he'd rather not. But he prefers money to poverty, and agrees to find out what kind of dangerous business her husband is mixed up in. Conrad Fletcher is a rich surgeon with a lot of enemies. He also owes big money to a very big, very bad bookie. But by the time Harry catches up with Fletcher, he's gone from being in debt to being dead. The list of suspects could fill the Grand Ole Opry, and Harry's search for the killer will lead him into the partsof Nashville that no one ever sings about--unless they're singing the DEAD FOLKS' BLUES.
"A deft, atmosphere-rich novel: smart, funny, and filled with a sense of wry heartbreak. Steven Womack's Nashville stands out--it is a beautifully drawn backdrop."
James Ellroy
One of my ancient paperbacks and according to the flyleaf I first finished the book on Fr 8/2/96, 'on weeks suspension'.....Ah, those were the days!
Introducing the character of Harry James Denton. He lives in Nashville, TN and is an ex-newspaperman. He was fired when he wrote a story about city corruption and it was published.
He's struggling for work and lives in a rented room in a house owned by an old nearly deaf woman on 'the wrong side of town'. He has to mow the lawn for part of his rent. He rents a very small room as his office space.
His first client, Rachel, is an old girlfriend. She knew him when they went to college and he knew her future husband, Conrad Fletcher. This man went on to become a very wealthy surgeon, but much despised in the medical community.
Lonnie is a friend of Harry's who repossesses vehicles and he also likes to blow things up. He knows a lot about computers and searching The Net.
Walter is also a friend of Harry's. They play intense games of racket ball. Harry sprains his ankle during one of their games.
Bubba is a 300 pound convenience store owner, ex-preacher and bookie. Conrad is a compulsive gambler and owes Bubba about a hundred grand.
Mr. Kennedy is a mountain of muscle, ex-athlete and Bubba's protection
SYNOPSIS:
Rachel and Walter are lovers. They kill Conrad for the insurance money.
Harry was at the hospital at the time of the murder. He went into a hospital room just after a nurse had left. This nurse was Rachel in disguise and she was too far away for Harry to really see her. As Harry leaned over the body of Conrad, he was hit on the head and knocked out by Walter.
From the book's page at GoodReads:
"EDGAR AWARD WINNER--Best Paperback Original Mystery 1993.
When Rachel Fletcher, an old college flame, enters Harry James Denton's office needing his private detecting services, he'd rather not. But he prefers money to poverty, and agrees to find out what kind of dangerous business her husband is mixed up in. Conrad Fletcher is a rich surgeon with a lot of enemies. He also owes big money to a very big, very bad bookie. But by the time Harry catches up with Fletcher, he's gone from being in debt to being dead. The list of suspects could fill the Grand Ole Opry, and Harry's search for the killer will lead him into the partsof Nashville that no one ever sings about--unless they're singing the DEAD FOLKS' BLUES.
"A deft, atmosphere-rich novel: smart, funny, and filled with a sense of wry heartbreak. Steven Womack's Nashville stands out--it is a beautifully drawn backdrop."
James Ellroy
Sunday, October 13, 2019
THE TARGET by David Baldacci
Finished Sa 10/13/19
This is a hardback that Janny loaned to me. Typical Baldacci stuff- action packed and a relentless pace, yet the characters are more 'one dimensional' and not fully developed- more caricatures rather than actual personalities.
Jessica Reel and Will Robie- two federal agents that would give James Bond, or Maxwell Smart, a run for their money.
TWO PLOTS:
1) Jessica's father is a Neo-Nazi and is in prison and dying of cancer incarcerated for life. Jessica entered witness protection after decimating her father's group. Her father lures her to the prison by telling a doctor that his last wish is to see 'his baby girl'. The group kidnaps a close friend of Will's and forces Jessica to turn herself in to the group in exchange for the release of Julie. Julie is a teenage girl who Will had saved in a previous novel.
2) A North Korean assassin, Chung- Cha grew up in a violent North Korean prison camp. She was forced to murder her family just to live. All inmates are forced to squeal on each other and the guards show no mercy.
She is sent on a mission to kill the first lady of the president of the US and her two children.
The First Family (without the president) spends Halloween on Nantucket Island. This is where Chung-Cha and her team of killers make the assassination attempt.
Chung-Cha 'adopted' a ten year old girl from the prison camp, Min. She takes Min on the hit because she convinces her bosses that Americans are more sympathetic to a woman with a young child.
SUBPLOT: The US had contacted a senior official in North Korea and this man was going to overthrow the government. This man is found out by the Koreans and Chung-Cha is sent to kill him, but the man commits suicide before she can do the hit. Before he dies, he asks the US to save his two children. They are in the same prison camp that Chung-Cha was from.
RESOLUTION:
In the hit at Nantucket Chung-Cha and five of her assassins have Jessica, Will, and the president's family cornered. But Chung-Cha switches sides and takes out the five assassins in less than a minute. However, an American policeman comes down into the basement and kills Chung-Cha because he didn't realize that she was actually saving the day.
Min is allowed to live in the US and she stays with Julie's foster father. And it's alluded to that Jessica and Will will play a large role in teaching Min the ways of Americans.
This is the third book in the Will Robie series.
This is a hardback that Janny loaned to me. Typical Baldacci stuff- action packed and a relentless pace, yet the characters are more 'one dimensional' and not fully developed- more caricatures rather than actual personalities.
Jessica Reel and Will Robie- two federal agents that would give James Bond, or Maxwell Smart, a run for their money.
TWO PLOTS:
1) Jessica's father is a Neo-Nazi and is in prison and dying of cancer incarcerated for life. Jessica entered witness protection after decimating her father's group. Her father lures her to the prison by telling a doctor that his last wish is to see 'his baby girl'. The group kidnaps a close friend of Will's and forces Jessica to turn herself in to the group in exchange for the release of Julie. Julie is a teenage girl who Will had saved in a previous novel.
2) A North Korean assassin, Chung- Cha grew up in a violent North Korean prison camp. She was forced to murder her family just to live. All inmates are forced to squeal on each other and the guards show no mercy.
She is sent on a mission to kill the first lady of the president of the US and her two children.
The First Family (without the president) spends Halloween on Nantucket Island. This is where Chung-Cha and her team of killers make the assassination attempt.
Chung-Cha 'adopted' a ten year old girl from the prison camp, Min. She takes Min on the hit because she convinces her bosses that Americans are more sympathetic to a woman with a young child.
SUBPLOT: The US had contacted a senior official in North Korea and this man was going to overthrow the government. This man is found out by the Koreans and Chung-Cha is sent to kill him, but the man commits suicide before she can do the hit. Before he dies, he asks the US to save his two children. They are in the same prison camp that Chung-Cha was from.
RESOLUTION:
In the hit at Nantucket Chung-Cha and five of her assassins have Jessica, Will, and the president's family cornered. But Chung-Cha switches sides and takes out the five assassins in less than a minute. However, an American policeman comes down into the basement and kills Chung-Cha because he didn't realize that she was actually saving the day.
Min is allowed to live in the US and she stays with Julie's foster father. And it's alluded to that Jessica and Will will play a large role in teaching Min the ways of Americans.
This is the third book in the Will Robie series.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
RULES OF CIVILITY by Amor Towles
Finished Mo 10/7/19
This is a trade paperback that I ordered from Amazon after reading Amor Towles novel, 'A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW'. That book was a selection for the Contemporary Book Club.
The title is taken from a book written by George Washington. I believe that he copied part of it, and it was called,' The Young George Washington's RULES OF CIVILITY & DECENT BEHAVIOR IN COMPANY AND CONVERSATION. There are 110 rules, and it's included in the Appendix of the book.
Katey Kontent
Evelyn Ross
Theodore (Tinker) Grey
Katey and Evelyn are roommates and they visit a small jazz club in Greenwich Village on New Year's Eve 1937. At the nightclub they meet the young, rich, and debonair gentleman, Tinker Grey.
Leaving the nightclub Tinker drives his car into a milk truck and Eve suffers terrible facial scars. Although the sexual chemistry between Katey and Tinker is strong, Tinker takes up with Eve because he feels guilty.
Eve and Tinker take off on a whirlwind romantic tour of Europe, and they are together for months.
Tinker is not really wealthy, but he is kind of a 'kept man' by a rich, older woman who claims to be his 'godmother'.
Eve learns of Tinker's deception and splits to California to become a star. She's largely dropped from the novel at this point.
And, Tinker comes to realize the last entry in George Washington's 'Rules'.
#110- 'Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience'.
From NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW
"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."
From the review at THE GUARDIAN
"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."
I really liked the novel, although in the middle of the book I switched over to 'THE LATE SHOW' a Michael Connolly novel that I borrowed from Janny.
RULES OF CIVILITY was a very interesting book, but I think that I liked A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW just a little more.
I think that Towles will be a writer that will be remembered if he hardly writes another thing. He's already that good.
This is a trade paperback that I ordered from Amazon after reading Amor Towles novel, 'A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW'. That book was a selection for the Contemporary Book Club.
The title is taken from a book written by George Washington. I believe that he copied part of it, and it was called,' The Young George Washington's RULES OF CIVILITY & DECENT BEHAVIOR IN COMPANY AND CONVERSATION. There are 110 rules, and it's included in the Appendix of the book.
Katey Kontent
Evelyn Ross
Theodore (Tinker) Grey
Katey and Evelyn are roommates and they visit a small jazz club in Greenwich Village on New Year's Eve 1937. At the nightclub they meet the young, rich, and debonair gentleman, Tinker Grey.
Leaving the nightclub Tinker drives his car into a milk truck and Eve suffers terrible facial scars. Although the sexual chemistry between Katey and Tinker is strong, Tinker takes up with Eve because he feels guilty.
Eve and Tinker take off on a whirlwind romantic tour of Europe, and they are together for months.
Tinker is not really wealthy, but he is kind of a 'kept man' by a rich, older woman who claims to be his 'godmother'.
Eve learns of Tinker's deception and splits to California to become a star. She's largely dropped from the novel at this point.
And, Tinker comes to realize the last entry in George Washington's 'Rules'.
#110- 'Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience'.
From NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW
"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."
From the review at THE GUARDIAN
"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."
I really liked the novel, although in the middle of the book I switched over to 'THE LATE SHOW' a Michael Connolly novel that I borrowed from Janny.
RULES OF CIVILITY was a very interesting book, but I think that I liked A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW just a little more.
I think that Towles will be a writer that will be remembered if he hardly writes another thing. He's already that good.
Sunday, October 6, 2019
THE LATE SHOW by Michael Connelly
Finished Sa 10/5/19
This is a hardback that Janny loaned me.
The title refers to 'third shift' or working 11pm to 7am. This is where they place police who are 'problems'.
This book introduces a new character- Renee Ballard. At first I thought Rene was a little too 'goody-goody', but she is one of the sharpest detectives in fiction. She can really 'work a case'.
Renee is a avid surfer and grew up in Hawaii and her father died when surfing. She was on the beach and only fourteen years old. Her mother just 'shut down', and became a recluse. Rene was basically homeless until her grandmother (Tutu) from California took her to the mainline.
Renee is on the 'night shift' because a senior officer made sexual advances and she resisted. Her partner Ken Chastain witnessed the incident, but he wouldn't back her up because he was more interested in career advancement.
Two big cases that drives the book:
1) A shooting at Dancer's nightclub. Four mob members and a couple of staff are shot and killed. Rene believes that a cop was responsible. And, it turned out to be fact.
2) A transsexual is beaten nearly to death. A car salesman is responsible. He uses brass (metal) knuckles that are stamped 'Good' and 'Evil'. He lives in a house in the Hollywood Hills called 'the upside down house'. You walk in and the living areas, kitchen, living room, etc. are on the ground floor and the bedrooms are downstairs.
Renee chases down the cop lead at Dancer's. She thinks it's the senior officer who stuck her on 'the late show', but it's actually another cop. A cop who seems to be helping her.
Renee is kidnapped by Trent, the transsexual abductor, and she kills him. She beats him up with the broom stick that was in the sliding glass door. And then she stabbed in with a splintered chair leg (like using a shiv).
Renee lives on the beach and surfs after her shift. She has a loyal dog named Lola.
From an online review:
"Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she’s been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.
But one night she catches two cases she doesn’t want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner’s wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won’t give up her job no matter what the department throws at her".
This is a hardback that Janny loaned me.
The title refers to 'third shift' or working 11pm to 7am. This is where they place police who are 'problems'.
This book introduces a new character- Renee Ballard. At first I thought Rene was a little too 'goody-goody', but she is one of the sharpest detectives in fiction. She can really 'work a case'.
Renee is a avid surfer and grew up in Hawaii and her father died when surfing. She was on the beach and only fourteen years old. Her mother just 'shut down', and became a recluse. Rene was basically homeless until her grandmother (Tutu) from California took her to the mainline.
Renee is on the 'night shift' because a senior officer made sexual advances and she resisted. Her partner Ken Chastain witnessed the incident, but he wouldn't back her up because he was more interested in career advancement.
Two big cases that drives the book:
1) A shooting at Dancer's nightclub. Four mob members and a couple of staff are shot and killed. Rene believes that a cop was responsible. And, it turned out to be fact.
2) A transsexual is beaten nearly to death. A car salesman is responsible. He uses brass (metal) knuckles that are stamped 'Good' and 'Evil'. He lives in a house in the Hollywood Hills called 'the upside down house'. You walk in and the living areas, kitchen, living room, etc. are on the ground floor and the bedrooms are downstairs.
Renee chases down the cop lead at Dancer's. She thinks it's the senior officer who stuck her on 'the late show', but it's actually another cop. A cop who seems to be helping her.
Renee is kidnapped by Trent, the transsexual abductor, and she kills him. She beats him up with the broom stick that was in the sliding glass door. And then she stabbed in with a splintered chair leg (like using a shiv).
Renee lives on the beach and surfs after her shift. She has a loyal dog named Lola.
From an online review:
"Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she’s been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.
But one night she catches two cases she doesn’t want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner’s wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won’t give up her job no matter what the department throws at her".
Sunday, September 29, 2019
OPEN HOUSE by Elizabeth Berg
Finished Sa 9/28/19
This is a hardback that I borrowed from Janny. She said that this was one of her favorite authors, and if I liked Ann Tyler Elizabeth Berg would be a shoo-in. She was right!
Samantha Morrow is a woman who was happy, satisfied, and content in her marriage in upper-class, suburban Massachusetts. Until her husband, David, walks out.
Sam and David; son- eleven year old Travis
Veronica- Sam's mother
Rita- Sam's friend who lives in California
Lydia and Thomas- a couple in their eighties. Lydia is Sam's first roommate.
Edward- an older gay man who becomes Sam's roommate.
Lavender Blue- a college student who becomes Sam's roommate. This young woman is depressed and has a very negative outlook. She leaves and was never a good fit.
King is an overweight young man who falls in love with Sam. He has a graduate degree from MIT even though he takes temp jobs that are far below his capacity.
Sam takes temp work suggested by King. This is also the reason that she takes in boarders. I think she also wants to recreate a 'family'. And, she does.
For almost the entire novel Sam would take David back in a second, but she finally realizes that the relationship is dead. She wants someone who can accept her for who she is and allow her to grow. David would not allow this...ever.
The writers page on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Berg_(author)
From the book's page at Amazon:
"Samantha's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her eleven-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tries to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. In order to really see people, she has to look within her heart. And in order to know who she is, she has to remember--and reclaim--the person she used to be, long before she became someone else in an effort to save her marriage. Open House is a love story about what can blossom between a man and a woman, and within a woman herself".
I loved the book and will read more by Elizabeth Berg. I thought the writing was chock-full of wry humor and charming insights.
This is a hardback that I borrowed from Janny. She said that this was one of her favorite authors, and if I liked Ann Tyler Elizabeth Berg would be a shoo-in. She was right!
Samantha Morrow is a woman who was happy, satisfied, and content in her marriage in upper-class, suburban Massachusetts. Until her husband, David, walks out.
Sam and David; son- eleven year old Travis
Veronica- Sam's mother
Rita- Sam's friend who lives in California
Lydia and Thomas- a couple in their eighties. Lydia is Sam's first roommate.
Edward- an older gay man who becomes Sam's roommate.
Lavender Blue- a college student who becomes Sam's roommate. This young woman is depressed and has a very negative outlook. She leaves and was never a good fit.
King is an overweight young man who falls in love with Sam. He has a graduate degree from MIT even though he takes temp jobs that are far below his capacity.
Sam takes temp work suggested by King. This is also the reason that she takes in boarders. I think she also wants to recreate a 'family'. And, she does.
For almost the entire novel Sam would take David back in a second, but she finally realizes that the relationship is dead. She wants someone who can accept her for who she is and allow her to grow. David would not allow this...ever.
The writers page on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Berg_(author)
From the book's page at Amazon:
"Samantha's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her eleven-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tries to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. In order to really see people, she has to look within her heart. And in order to know who she is, she has to remember--and reclaim--the person she used to be, long before she became someone else in an effort to save her marriage. Open House is a love story about what can blossom between a man and a woman, and within a woman herself".
I loved the book and will read more by Elizabeth Berg. I thought the writing was chock-full of wry humor and charming insights.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
THE FAR FIELD by Madhuri Vijay
The September 2019 selection for the Contemporary Book Club
Finished Tu 9/24/15
'THE FAR FIELD'; A hollow book that I learned nothing of the major political and social elements of the story. A complete absence of exotic or local color. It could have happened in Peoria. My least favorite book of all of the books picked by the book club.
********After the book club meeting I changed my mind on the book. I listened to the podcasts by the author and listened to the discussion about the book by the members, and I think that I now appreciate the book. The theme is that Shalini is on a hero's quest, but she's in way over her head. She ends up hurting the people that she was trying to help. And they resent her and are unforgiving.
Shalini ("Murgi"- chicken)- The protagonist of the story
Bangalore- pop. 12 and a half million
Kishtiwar- pop. 131,000
1,900 miles between the two cities. America is approx. 2000 miles east to west
Shalini's mother commits suicide by drinking pesticide.
Her mother calls Shalini 'little beast'
Shalini gets 12,000 rupees to make the trip; $169
Pays Amina or Zoya??? 500 rupees for rent; $7
Bashir Ahmed- this is the peddler from The North Country who visits Shalini's mother and they, along with Shalini for a kind of relationship.
Abdul Latief
Zoya. The couple that take Shalini in when she travels to Kishtiwar.
Riyaz is the son of Bshir Ahmed and he lives in a small village within sight of Kishtiwar,
Amina is his wife and their son is Aaquib
Mohammad Din is the village elder and councilman. His daughter is Sania who Shalini teaches.
Stalin- a young soldier who hassles Shalini
Brigadier Reddy is a friend of Shalini's father and he has his soldiers get Shalini out of Kishtiwar during 'the troubles'.
Ramchand is Reddy's personal assistant
Shalini sleeps with the general. Why????
Comment on GoodReads: her naiveté, thoughtlessness, and selfishness rather repellent.
Bengaluru
Kashmir is contested by India, Pakistan, and China
"The Far Field is the recollections of Shalini, a thirty year old privileged woman living in Bangalore who shares what happened to her when, as a twenty-something grieving the death of her mother, she decided to track down a traveling salesman from Kashmir who visited their home (and who her mother was fascinated with) when she was a child/teenager."
This book was a spotlight into how the rich and powerful really hold the lives of the poor and disempowered in their hands, and how actions, whether malicious, or casually thoughtless, or even made of misdirected helpfulness all lead to the same thing.... the theme of cowardice.
Finished Tu 9/24/15
'THE FAR FIELD'; A hollow book that I learned nothing of the major political and social elements of the story. A complete absence of exotic or local color. It could have happened in Peoria. My least favorite book of all of the books picked by the book club.
********After the book club meeting I changed my mind on the book. I listened to the podcasts by the author and listened to the discussion about the book by the members, and I think that I now appreciate the book. The theme is that Shalini is on a hero's quest, but she's in way over her head. She ends up hurting the people that she was trying to help. And they resent her and are unforgiving.
Shalini ("Murgi"- chicken)- The protagonist of the story
Bangalore- pop. 12 and a half million
Kishtiwar- pop. 131,000
1,900 miles between the two cities. America is approx. 2000 miles east to west
Shalini's mother commits suicide by drinking pesticide.
Her mother calls Shalini 'little beast'
Shalini gets 12,000 rupees to make the trip; $169
Pays Amina or Zoya??? 500 rupees for rent; $7
Bashir Ahmed- this is the peddler from The North Country who visits Shalini's mother and they, along with Shalini for a kind of relationship.
Abdul Latief
Zoya. The couple that take Shalini in when she travels to Kishtiwar.
Riyaz is the son of Bshir Ahmed and he lives in a small village within sight of Kishtiwar,
Amina is his wife and their son is Aaquib
Mohammad Din is the village elder and councilman. His daughter is Sania who Shalini teaches.
Stalin- a young soldier who hassles Shalini
Brigadier Reddy is a friend of Shalini's father and he has his soldiers get Shalini out of Kishtiwar during 'the troubles'.
Ramchand is Reddy's personal assistant
Shalini sleeps with the general. Why????
Comment on GoodReads: her naiveté, thoughtlessness, and selfishness rather repellent.
Bengaluru
Kashmir is contested by India, Pakistan, and China
"The Far Field is the recollections of Shalini, a thirty year old privileged woman living in Bangalore who shares what happened to her when, as a twenty-something grieving the death of her mother, she decided to track down a traveling salesman from Kashmir who visited their home (and who her mother was fascinated with) when she was a child/teenager."
This book was a spotlight into how the rich and powerful really hold the lives of the poor and disempowered in their hands, and how actions, whether malicious, or casually thoughtless, or even made of misdirected helpfulness all lead to the same thing.... the theme of cowardice.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
CADILLAC JUKEBOX by James Lee Burke
Finished Tu 9/17/19
This is one of my ancient paperbacks and instead of throwing it away, I'll give it to Janny. It's got about one more read in it. According to the flyleaf, I bought the book at West Branch on Sa 2/7/04 for a quarter. I finished it the first time on Sa 2/20/06 after I had scheduled all Fridays off until April.
I love everything by James Lee Burke and last week I got his very first novel and another early James Robicheaux from Amazon. All the books are full of interesting characters, with colorful names, and compelling plots, and this book was no different.
The central plot is the murder of a black 60's civil rights advocate by a North Louisianan red-neck , Aaron Crown.
However, here's the twist:
Aaron Crown really did kill civil rights advocate, Ely Dixon, but it was by mistake. Crown went to the house to kill Jimmy Ray Dixon, but didn't know that he had moved, and he murdered Jimmy Ray's brother in error. He wanted Jimmy Ray dead because he had gotten Aaron's daughter, Sabelle, involved in the prostitution rackets. Ely Dixon was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but because there was so much hatred for civil rights workers at the time, it was just assumed that a white supremacist had done the deed.
There is also a very strange and evil white couple in the novel. Buford and Karyn LaRose are a very wealthy and influential family in the area. Buford is a powerful political figure and will be made governor, and Karyn was an early love of Dave Robicheaux's. Dave is married and in love with Bootsy, and resists Karyn's overtures. It's revealed that Buford isn't really crooked, but it is Karyn who is caught up in the evil of the area.
From the novel's page at Amazon:
"No one was surprised when Aaron Crown was arrested for the decades-old murder of the most famous black civil rights leader in Louisiana. After all, his family were shiftless timber people who brought their ways into the Cajun wetlands--trailing rumors of ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Only Dave Robicheaux, to whom Crown proclaims his innocence, worries that Crown had been made a scapegoat for the collective guilt of a generation.
But when Buford LaRose, scion of an old Southern family and author of a book that sent Crown to prison, is elected governor, strange things start to happen. Dave is offered a job as head of the state police; a documentary filmmaker seeking to prove Crown's innocence is killed; and the governor's wife--a former flame--once again turns her seductive powers on Dave. It's clear that Dave must find out the dark truth about Aaron Crown, a truth that too many people want to remain hidden."
This is one of my ancient paperbacks and instead of throwing it away, I'll give it to Janny. It's got about one more read in it. According to the flyleaf, I bought the book at West Branch on Sa 2/7/04 for a quarter. I finished it the first time on Sa 2/20/06 after I had scheduled all Fridays off until April.
I love everything by James Lee Burke and last week I got his very first novel and another early James Robicheaux from Amazon. All the books are full of interesting characters, with colorful names, and compelling plots, and this book was no different.
The central plot is the murder of a black 60's civil rights advocate by a North Louisianan red-neck , Aaron Crown.
However, here's the twist:
Aaron Crown really did kill civil rights advocate, Ely Dixon, but it was by mistake. Crown went to the house to kill Jimmy Ray Dixon, but didn't know that he had moved, and he murdered Jimmy Ray's brother in error. He wanted Jimmy Ray dead because he had gotten Aaron's daughter, Sabelle, involved in the prostitution rackets. Ely Dixon was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but because there was so much hatred for civil rights workers at the time, it was just assumed that a white supremacist had done the deed.
There is also a very strange and evil white couple in the novel. Buford and Karyn LaRose are a very wealthy and influential family in the area. Buford is a powerful political figure and will be made governor, and Karyn was an early love of Dave Robicheaux's. Dave is married and in love with Bootsy, and resists Karyn's overtures. It's revealed that Buford isn't really crooked, but it is Karyn who is caught up in the evil of the area.
From the novel's page at Amazon:
"No one was surprised when Aaron Crown was arrested for the decades-old murder of the most famous black civil rights leader in Louisiana. After all, his family were shiftless timber people who brought their ways into the Cajun wetlands--trailing rumors of ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Only Dave Robicheaux, to whom Crown proclaims his innocence, worries that Crown had been made a scapegoat for the collective guilt of a generation.
But when Buford LaRose, scion of an old Southern family and author of a book that sent Crown to prison, is elected governor, strange things start to happen. Dave is offered a job as head of the state police; a documentary filmmaker seeking to prove Crown's innocence is killed; and the governor's wife--a former flame--once again turns her seductive powers on Dave. It's clear that Dave must find out the dark truth about Aaron Crown, a truth that too many people want to remain hidden."
Friday, September 13, 2019
13 STEPS DOWN by Ruth Rendell
Finished Th 8/12/19
This is one of my hardbacks that I first read and finished Fr 2/16/07. The note on the flyleaf says that I took 'E-Time' at 1115am due to an antifreeze leak in Brown's truck on the way to Godfrey/ Maryville.
Ruth Rendell is a master at creating a snapshot of the mind of a madman. She really makes evil understandable.
Michael (Mix) Cellini is a young man who repairs exercise equipment for a living.
He lives in an old and disheveled house owned by Miss Chawcer. He has the attic apartment and it's 13 steps to his door.
He is obsessed with a 1950's killer, Reggie Christie.
The house is in northwest London and also the neighborhood of Christie, but his house has been torn down.
Mix is also obsessed with a London super-model, Nerissa.
Mix tracks Nerissa to a gym owned by Madame Shoshana.
Nerissa didn't workout at this club, but visited Madame Shoshana to have her fortune told.
While at the club Mix meets Danila who worked as a receptionist.
Mix dates Danila, but murders her because she disrespected the poster of Nerissa that hung in Mix's room. He puts her beneath the floorboards in the next room, but Miss Chawcer suspects something so he buries Danila in the garden.
Mix thinks that he is seeing the ghost of Reggie Christie, but it is really an asylum seeker from Iraq that is secretly living in the house.
From the review at Kirkus:
This is one of my hardbacks that I first read and finished Fr 2/16/07. The note on the flyleaf says that I took 'E-Time' at 1115am due to an antifreeze leak in Brown's truck on the way to Godfrey/ Maryville.
Ruth Rendell is a master at creating a snapshot of the mind of a madman. She really makes evil understandable.
Michael (Mix) Cellini is a young man who repairs exercise equipment for a living.
He lives in an old and disheveled house owned by Miss Chawcer. He has the attic apartment and it's 13 steps to his door.
He is obsessed with a 1950's killer, Reggie Christie.
The house is in northwest London and also the neighborhood of Christie, but his house has been torn down.
Mix is also obsessed with a London super-model, Nerissa.
Mix tracks Nerissa to a gym owned by Madame Shoshana.
Nerissa didn't workout at this club, but visited Madame Shoshana to have her fortune told.
While at the club Mix meets Danila who worked as a receptionist.
Mix dates Danila, but murders her because she disrespected the poster of Nerissa that hung in Mix's room. He puts her beneath the floorboards in the next room, but Miss Chawcer suspects something so he buries Danila in the garden.
Mix thinks that he is seeing the ghost of Reggie Christie, but it is really an asylum seeker from Iraq that is secretly living in the house.
From the review at Kirkus:
"Another brilliantly rendered Rendellscape in which the central figure is the blond, blue-eyed psychopath next door.
They are the essence of ordinary, Rendell’s monsters—no one’s ever sure how to describe them. Eyes? Well, maybe blue, maybe gray. Hair? Blond probably. Or maybe blond fading to brown. Like Michael Cellini—the latest in a long list of unremarkable archfiends from Rendell (The Babes in the Woods, 2003, etc.)—they are meticulously designed to pass in a crowd. Michael calls himself Mix, and we meet him first in the grip of one of his two obsessions. The street where John Reginald Halliday Christie, famed serial killer, formerly lived, has been obliterated, replaced by what Mix calls up-market soullessness. Mix is outraged. Christie’s house should have been preserved as a museum, Mix as curator. Why not? Who, after all, knows more about Reggie? And then there’s Mix’s new landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer: elderly, eccentric and a snob. She views Mix as irredeemably vulgar, resents the straitened circumstances that compel her to accept him as a lodger. Perfect embodiments of class warfare, the two detest each other on sight, and this will have chilling ramifications. In the meantime, here’s Mix’s second obsession: a beautiful young model named Nerissa Nash. On his wall, there’s a poster of her, iconic. He worships at it, idealizing her and wanting her passionately. In the weird, parallel universe he’s created, she wants him with equal fervor—so that what he conceives of as wooing, she, in terror, considers stalking. And, inevitably, this, too, will have the chilling ramifications that have become Rendell’s nail-biting stock in trade.
Masterful, as usual. No one does evil better."
From the Penquin Random House page:
"Mix Cellini has just moved into a flat in a decaying house in Nottinghill, where he plans to pursue his two abiding passions–supermodel Nerissa Nash, whom he worships from afar, and the life of serial killer Reggie Christie, hanged fifty years earlier for murdering at least eight women. Gwendolen Chawcer, Mix’s eighty-year-old landlady, has few interests besides her old books and her new tenant. But she does have an intriguing connection to Christie. And when reality intrudes into Mix’s life, he turns to Christie for inspiration and a long pent-up violence explodes. Intricately plotted and brilliantly written, 13 Steps Down enters the minds of these disparate people as they move inexorably toward its breathtaking conclusion."
I found out that several years ago a two part mini-series was made of the book. I will be watching this on YouTube this afternoon when I workout at Planet Fitness.
Monday, September 9, 2019
PIGTOWN by William J. Caunitz
Finished Su 9/8/19
This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first read and finished "mid June of 2002".
I am a sucker for the Police Procedural Genre set in NYC during the seventies through the nineties, and this one was right up my alley.
'Pigtown' no longer exists (now the area is 'Wingate'), but it was in Flatbush and it was a kind of agricultural area of the city. As late as the 1930's it was still possible to find shanties with goats and pigs in Brooklyn. This area was the location of Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1912 to 1957.
The novel begins with the discovery of a body stuffed in a refrigerator. Beansy Rotulo was a minor 'made man' in the mafia and he was gunned down and placed in the fridge by two members of a Rastafarian gang.
The house where the body was found was owned by Andrea Russo, a woman who worked in a bar owned by Paddy Holiday. This man was a retired IAD cop and was working for the mob while on the job and still was a player.
Matt Stewart is the protagonist and he is a detective working at the NYC'Seven One Division'.
The most interesting part of the novel is about the widespread police corruption.
In 1963 there was a meeting called the Knight's Roundtable where the police commissioner asked the Intelligence Division what would happen if the department did away with 'good money'. 'Good money' was the phrase used to explain graft paid on gambling, prostitution, and loan sharking- anything but drug money.
So what they did is to put Frank Serpico, a lily-white, clean cop, into the most larcenous police district in the entire department. The Knapp Commission came in and shut down all sources of 'good money' and this opened the floodgates for drug money. This allowed the drug cartels to turn NYC into a wide-open drug supermarket by the 70's. And the kickbacks from 'good money' to 'drug money' expanded from thousands of dollars to millions. The police bosses were able to funnel most of the money to themselves under the new 'drug money' system.
I couldn't find anything on the Internet about this 'Knight's Roundtable' (in the book the name refers to the police commissioner by the name of 'Knight'), but something like this probably happened- A pact between the police and the mob.
From Publishers Weekly about the book:
"The gritty realism of Caunitz's new novel (after Cleopatra Gold), as in his earlier ones, reflects the more than two decades he spent with the NYPD. Caunitz's cops sound and act like the real thing, and his villains, while occasionally over the top, are fetchingly sinister (only the extravagant, mostly illicit sex here comes off as more fantasy than reportage). The murder of small-time hood Beansy Rutolo in the Brooklyn neighborhood dubbed ``Pigtown'' has a special significance for Lieutenant Matthew Stuart: the deceased's unexpected testimony once saved Matt's father from being kicked off the job for political reasons. Now the effort to track down Beansy's killers is revealing corruption that reaches deep into the Department-and goes back years. Matt is struggling with assorted personal demons too-the tragedy that ended his marriage; his secret relationship with a superior officer known as the ``Ice Maiden''; and an attempt to frame him for dereliction of duty. Caunitz's prose is flat-footed, weighed down with mundane detail, and his theme of ancient, festering corruption was old hat when Teddy Roosevelt was the city's police commissioner. Still, his feel for cops and cons matches anyone's, as evidenced once again by this flawed but still engaging novel, a police blotter come to life. Author tour."
This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first read and finished "mid June of 2002".
I am a sucker for the Police Procedural Genre set in NYC during the seventies through the nineties, and this one was right up my alley.
'Pigtown' no longer exists (now the area is 'Wingate'), but it was in Flatbush and it was a kind of agricultural area of the city. As late as the 1930's it was still possible to find shanties with goats and pigs in Brooklyn. This area was the location of Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1912 to 1957.
The novel begins with the discovery of a body stuffed in a refrigerator. Beansy Rotulo was a minor 'made man' in the mafia and he was gunned down and placed in the fridge by two members of a Rastafarian gang.
The house where the body was found was owned by Andrea Russo, a woman who worked in a bar owned by Paddy Holiday. This man was a retired IAD cop and was working for the mob while on the job and still was a player.
Matt Stewart is the protagonist and he is a detective working at the NYC'Seven One Division'.
The most interesting part of the novel is about the widespread police corruption.
In 1963 there was a meeting called the Knight's Roundtable where the police commissioner asked the Intelligence Division what would happen if the department did away with 'good money'. 'Good money' was the phrase used to explain graft paid on gambling, prostitution, and loan sharking- anything but drug money.
So what they did is to put Frank Serpico, a lily-white, clean cop, into the most larcenous police district in the entire department. The Knapp Commission came in and shut down all sources of 'good money' and this opened the floodgates for drug money. This allowed the drug cartels to turn NYC into a wide-open drug supermarket by the 70's. And the kickbacks from 'good money' to 'drug money' expanded from thousands of dollars to millions. The police bosses were able to funnel most of the money to themselves under the new 'drug money' system.
I couldn't find anything on the Internet about this 'Knight's Roundtable' (in the book the name refers to the police commissioner by the name of 'Knight'), but something like this probably happened- A pact between the police and the mob.
From Publishers Weekly about the book:
"The gritty realism of Caunitz's new novel (after Cleopatra Gold), as in his earlier ones, reflects the more than two decades he spent with the NYPD. Caunitz's cops sound and act like the real thing, and his villains, while occasionally over the top, are fetchingly sinister (only the extravagant, mostly illicit sex here comes off as more fantasy than reportage). The murder of small-time hood Beansy Rutolo in the Brooklyn neighborhood dubbed ``Pigtown'' has a special significance for Lieutenant Matthew Stuart: the deceased's unexpected testimony once saved Matt's father from being kicked off the job for political reasons. Now the effort to track down Beansy's killers is revealing corruption that reaches deep into the Department-and goes back years. Matt is struggling with assorted personal demons too-the tragedy that ended his marriage; his secret relationship with a superior officer known as the ``Ice Maiden''; and an attempt to frame him for dereliction of duty. Caunitz's prose is flat-footed, weighed down with mundane detail, and his theme of ancient, festering corruption was old hat when Teddy Roosevelt was the city's police commissioner. Still, his feel for cops and cons matches anyone's, as evidenced once again by this flawed but still engaging novel, a police blotter come to life. Author tour."
Thursday, September 5, 2019
A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS by James Lee Burke
Finished We 9/5/19
This is a paperback that I recently ordered from Amazon and received on Sa 8/24/19.
An earlier work about The Cajun Detective, Dave Robicheaux. I loved this one, and all of them!
The novel begins when Dave and his partner are transporting two prisoners to Angola. One young black kid, Tee Beau, who is accused of killing his boss. He allowed a truck to drop on his boss mechanic. The man was under the truck and the kid knocked over the jack. And, another man, Jimmie Lee Boggs, who is a vicious killer for the mob.
They stop because Boggs claims he needs the restroom, and there was a gun hidden in the toilet left by his girlfriend. Boggs kills Dave's partner, and badly wounds Dave. Dave crawled away and Boggs sends Tee down with the gun to finish Dave off. But the kid shoots into the weeds and Dave is later found and rescued.
Dave is on disability for a few months and during this time he is approached by a federal agent and asked to take part in a sting to bring down Tony Cardo, a new crime boss in the area.
The scam is to let the street know that Dave is a washed up drunk and has been dropped from the force, and he's interested in making a big dope deal. He has hundreds of thousands in fed money to make it look like he's legit.
The interesting 'hook' is that while Dave is setting up Tony Cardo, he gets close to the man. Cardo has a crippled son that he loves and he also shared some of the same experiences as Dave had in Vietnam. And both Dave and Tony struggle with substance abuse.
Dave reconnects with Bootsy, the first love of his life. And later he learns that she is suffering from Lupus. She had married one of the local crime bosses and this man is dead and she runs his 'mobbed up' vending machine business.
Clete Purcell is also in the story. He helps Dave in the sting even though other law enforcement agents do not trust Purcell. He runs a bar in New Orleans on Decatur Street.
I loved the book and I want to read all of the Robicheaux series.
A description of the book from its' page on Amazon:
"In a muddy, weed-filled coulee, Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux begs an escaped convict for his life and is left more troubled by his lack of courage than by his gunshot wounds. Burke ( Half of Paradise ) proceeds to balance the resulting self-doubts of his tough, sympathetic hero with a complex, credible plot in his latest Cajun mystery. Robicheaux, a widower, leaves his small town for New Orleans, where he used to be a cop, to run a sting operation for the DEA. He engineers drug buys aimed at incriminating the local drug lord, an ex-Marine with nightmares and a habit from Vietnam, while trying to ferret out Jimmie Lee Boggs, the killer responsible for the coulee incident. Vivid supporting characters include Robicheaux's former NOPD partner Clete Purcel; an old true love now the widow of a Mafia figure; Gros Mama Goula, a juju woman; and Tony Cardo, the jumpy dealer whose inner struggles reflect Robicheaux's. Attentive to language and atmosphere, Burke delivers action on churning Gulf waters, in city streets, in deserted fields and within the souls of his memorable characters--and a fully satisfying resolution".
This is a paperback that I recently ordered from Amazon and received on Sa 8/24/19.
An earlier work about The Cajun Detective, Dave Robicheaux. I loved this one, and all of them!
The novel begins when Dave and his partner are transporting two prisoners to Angola. One young black kid, Tee Beau, who is accused of killing his boss. He allowed a truck to drop on his boss mechanic. The man was under the truck and the kid knocked over the jack. And, another man, Jimmie Lee Boggs, who is a vicious killer for the mob.
They stop because Boggs claims he needs the restroom, and there was a gun hidden in the toilet left by his girlfriend. Boggs kills Dave's partner, and badly wounds Dave. Dave crawled away and Boggs sends Tee down with the gun to finish Dave off. But the kid shoots into the weeds and Dave is later found and rescued.
Dave is on disability for a few months and during this time he is approached by a federal agent and asked to take part in a sting to bring down Tony Cardo, a new crime boss in the area.
The scam is to let the street know that Dave is a washed up drunk and has been dropped from the force, and he's interested in making a big dope deal. He has hundreds of thousands in fed money to make it look like he's legit.
The interesting 'hook' is that while Dave is setting up Tony Cardo, he gets close to the man. Cardo has a crippled son that he loves and he also shared some of the same experiences as Dave had in Vietnam. And both Dave and Tony struggle with substance abuse.
Dave reconnects with Bootsy, the first love of his life. And later he learns that she is suffering from Lupus. She had married one of the local crime bosses and this man is dead and she runs his 'mobbed up' vending machine business.
Clete Purcell is also in the story. He helps Dave in the sting even though other law enforcement agents do not trust Purcell. He runs a bar in New Orleans on Decatur Street.
I loved the book and I want to read all of the Robicheaux series.
A description of the book from its' page on Amazon:
"In a muddy, weed-filled coulee, Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux begs an escaped convict for his life and is left more troubled by his lack of courage than by his gunshot wounds. Burke ( Half of Paradise ) proceeds to balance the resulting self-doubts of his tough, sympathetic hero with a complex, credible plot in his latest Cajun mystery. Robicheaux, a widower, leaves his small town for New Orleans, where he used to be a cop, to run a sting operation for the DEA. He engineers drug buys aimed at incriminating the local drug lord, an ex-Marine with nightmares and a habit from Vietnam, while trying to ferret out Jimmie Lee Boggs, the killer responsible for the coulee incident. Vivid supporting characters include Robicheaux's former NOPD partner Clete Purcel; an old true love now the widow of a Mafia figure; Gros Mama Goula, a juju woman; and Tony Cardo, the jumpy dealer whose inner struggles reflect Robicheaux's. Attentive to language and atmosphere, Burke delivers action on churning Gulf waters, in city streets, in deserted fields and within the souls of his memorable characters--and a fully satisfying resolution".
Friday, August 30, 2019
52 PICK-UP by Elmore Leonard
Finished Th 8/30/19
This is one of my ancient paperbacks. I apparently had not read it and no idea how long I've owned it.
Published in 1974 and set in 70's Detroit. Leonard wrote 'GET SHORTY' and dozens of other great books. Known as 'THE DICKENS OF DETROIT'.
The book was made into a movie in 1986 starring Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret; John Frankenheimer directs
link to author's page at wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmore_Leonard
Mitch (Harry Mitchell) is a small business owner who has an affair with a much younger woman, Cini. He is married to Barb, but the marriage has gone stale, yet he still loves his wife.
Suddenly he finds that he is the victim of a shakedown. If he doesn't pay a hundred thousand dollars, his affair will be revealed to his wife.
The Bad Guys:
Leo Franks- runs a 'modeling agency'. Men pay to 'watch' a girl nude. She undresses and they watch.
Bobby Shy- a Black thug who drinks at the strip club with the other bad guys.
Doreen- Black girlfriend of Bobby's and works at the 'modeling agency'.
Alan Raimy - runs an 'art' theater. Sleazy sex films.
Mitch doesn't pay, so the bad guys murder Cini on camera using Mitch's gun.
Mitch gets all of the bad guys pictures and finds out where they live, work, and hang out.
O'Boyle is Mitch's lawyer and helps him fight back
Alan kills the other members of his crew, and Mitch kills Alan at the money transfer. He rigs the case with explosives.
Mitch and Barbara rekindle their marriage.
From the back of the book:
"Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell was having a mid-life crisis. ...And now he had a problem with porn movies. He was in one... A man with a stocking over his head and a .38 in his hand wanted a hundred grand to keep Harry's picture out of circulation. But the hoods behind this blackmail scam made a big mistake when they fingered Harry Mitchell for their pigeon. ,,,And the more they got him mad, the more certain it was that the only pay-off Harry planned was getting even. "
This is one of my ancient paperbacks. I apparently had not read it and no idea how long I've owned it.
Published in 1974 and set in 70's Detroit. Leonard wrote 'GET SHORTY' and dozens of other great books. Known as 'THE DICKENS OF DETROIT'.
The book was made into a movie in 1986 starring Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret; John Frankenheimer directs
link to author's page at wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmore_Leonard
Mitch (Harry Mitchell) is a small business owner who has an affair with a much younger woman, Cini. He is married to Barb, but the marriage has gone stale, yet he still loves his wife.
Suddenly he finds that he is the victim of a shakedown. If he doesn't pay a hundred thousand dollars, his affair will be revealed to his wife.
The Bad Guys:
Leo Franks- runs a 'modeling agency'. Men pay to 'watch' a girl nude. She undresses and they watch.
Bobby Shy- a Black thug who drinks at the strip club with the other bad guys.
Doreen- Black girlfriend of Bobby's and works at the 'modeling agency'.
Alan Raimy - runs an 'art' theater. Sleazy sex films.
Mitch doesn't pay, so the bad guys murder Cini on camera using Mitch's gun.
Mitch gets all of the bad guys pictures and finds out where they live, work, and hang out.
O'Boyle is Mitch's lawyer and helps him fight back
Alan kills the other members of his crew, and Mitch kills Alan at the money transfer. He rigs the case with explosives.
Mitch and Barbara rekindle their marriage.
From the back of the book:
"Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell was having a mid-life crisis. ...And now he had a problem with porn movies. He was in one... A man with a stocking over his head and a .38 in his hand wanted a hundred grand to keep Harry's picture out of circulation. But the hoods behind this blackmail scam made a big mistake when they fingered Harry Mitchell for their pigeon. ,,,And the more they got him mad, the more certain it was that the only pay-off Harry planned was getting even. "
Saturday, August 17, 2019
SELLING OUT by Dan Wakefield
Finished Fr 8/16/19
This is an ancient hardback that I purchased at the library sidewalk sale on Sa 6/19/95 and had never read.
I really liked the novel and it's a nice companion piece to John Gregory Dunne's, 'THE STUDIO' that I finished last week. Both provide insight into the movie industry of the last century. I'd sure like to read a book about the way things are handled today.
Perry and Jane Moss are the perfect couple. He's a tenured professor in a small Vermont college where he's a revered English teacher, and Jane is a published photographer.
They are soul mates, best friends, and still very much in love.
Perry gets an offer to travel to Hollywood and transform one of his published short stories into a television series.
They travel to Hollywood and at first, Perry resists the idea. He feels that his style of writing is far above 'Tinseltown', but Jane makes him give it a chance. She convinces him that he will 'elevate' the projects that he's given.
Everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. After a while, Jane returns to Vermont. She immediately sees that Perry has sold his soul, and this sickens her. She wants to return to what they had, but Perry maintains that they can have it both ways.
Perry spirals out of control, and never quite grasps the moral and ethical climate of the entertainment industry.
It's 'Feast or Famine', and nothing in between, and any moral code gives way to the power of money. Yet money is not the final object of desire, it's the power that it represents.
Example:
When a producer is dropped from a multi-million dollar project this is not seen as a failure, but a win. The fact that he was involved in a project of this magnitude is seen as an unqualified success, and the fact that he lost it is not important. He has proven that he can 'play with the big boys', and his course is set.
The book is easily written, but maybe a little cliched, but I still enjoyed it very much.
Kirkus Review:
"Perry Moss, 42, teaches at Haviland College in southern Vermont, publishes stories in Partisan Review and Playboy, lives happily with second wife Jane, a serious photographer: ""They were tweed. They were corduroy and cotton, with red flannel nightshirts in winter."" But when whiz-kid Archer Mellis, new TV-dept. chief at Paragon Films, decides to turn one of Perry's stories into a TV-series, the tweedy couple flies out for a sojourn in Tinseltown. And so begins an essentially familiar tale of selling out--as Perry, in Hollywood to write the pilot-episode, all too quickly goes Hollywood. . . to Jane's escalating dismay. True, at first Perry is put off by the glitz and the crassness, by boss Mellis, who dresses ""like a Castro-trained insurgent guerrilla."" But his colleagues--exec-producer Ned, director Kenton--are classy guys with theater backgrounds; they're encouraged to make ""The First Year's the Hardest"" (about newlyweds in academia) ""quality"" TV; the pilot turns into a two-hour TV-movie that gets good reviews and high ratings. So all of a sudden Perry is ""hot,"" and keeps putting off the return to Vermont as the show-biz possibilities proliferate. He's horny and high on power and glamour--his voice gets deeper and deeper--while Jane, fed up and neglected, heads home alone. Even after the TV-series production turns into a nightmare (crazy-quilt directives from network bozos, staff purges, disastrous ratings), unemployed Perry determines to stick it out in L.A., somehow get ""hot"" again; he maintains manic optimism with an assist from cocaine, blithely sacrificing his professorial tenure back home; he betrays exec-producer Ned, who's virtually the only gentleman in southern California. But finally, of course, after a farcical interlude with loony producer Larman Kling (""Harpo Marx with a voice"") and a script about a psychic dog, Perry realizes that he'd ""forgotten about friends. Forgotten about everything that mattered. Or used to matter."" And there's a saccharine fadeout on Perry returning to Vermont, ""moving toward the woman he loved."" Wakefield, a novelist (Going All the Way) who has done time in TV (James at 15), fills out this thin, predictable scenario with enough insider-ish, cartoony details to provide fairly steady amusement for media mavens. (One highlight: the moans and murmurs that ensue--""It's genocide. . .""--when Perry's series is scheduled opposite Dallas.) But there's too much blandness and sentimentality here for all-out Tinseltown satire--while Perry, instantly corrupted and superficially redeemed, is too much of a clown to take seriously."
A link to the author's page on wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Wakefield
This is an ancient hardback that I purchased at the library sidewalk sale on Sa 6/19/95 and had never read.
I really liked the novel and it's a nice companion piece to John Gregory Dunne's, 'THE STUDIO' that I finished last week. Both provide insight into the movie industry of the last century. I'd sure like to read a book about the way things are handled today.
Perry and Jane Moss are the perfect couple. He's a tenured professor in a small Vermont college where he's a revered English teacher, and Jane is a published photographer.
They are soul mates, best friends, and still very much in love.
Perry gets an offer to travel to Hollywood and transform one of his published short stories into a television series.
They travel to Hollywood and at first, Perry resists the idea. He feels that his style of writing is far above 'Tinseltown', but Jane makes him give it a chance. She convinces him that he will 'elevate' the projects that he's given.
Everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. After a while, Jane returns to Vermont. She immediately sees that Perry has sold his soul, and this sickens her. She wants to return to what they had, but Perry maintains that they can have it both ways.
Perry spirals out of control, and never quite grasps the moral and ethical climate of the entertainment industry.
It's 'Feast or Famine', and nothing in between, and any moral code gives way to the power of money. Yet money is not the final object of desire, it's the power that it represents.
Example:
When a producer is dropped from a multi-million dollar project this is not seen as a failure, but a win. The fact that he was involved in a project of this magnitude is seen as an unqualified success, and the fact that he lost it is not important. He has proven that he can 'play with the big boys', and his course is set.
The book is easily written, but maybe a little cliched, but I still enjoyed it very much.
Kirkus Review:
"Perry Moss, 42, teaches at Haviland College in southern Vermont, publishes stories in Partisan Review and Playboy, lives happily with second wife Jane, a serious photographer: ""They were tweed. They were corduroy and cotton, with red flannel nightshirts in winter."" But when whiz-kid Archer Mellis, new TV-dept. chief at Paragon Films, decides to turn one of Perry's stories into a TV-series, the tweedy couple flies out for a sojourn in Tinseltown. And so begins an essentially familiar tale of selling out--as Perry, in Hollywood to write the pilot-episode, all too quickly goes Hollywood. . . to Jane's escalating dismay. True, at first Perry is put off by the glitz and the crassness, by boss Mellis, who dresses ""like a Castro-trained insurgent guerrilla."" But his colleagues--exec-producer Ned, director Kenton--are classy guys with theater backgrounds; they're encouraged to make ""The First Year's the Hardest"" (about newlyweds in academia) ""quality"" TV; the pilot turns into a two-hour TV-movie that gets good reviews and high ratings. So all of a sudden Perry is ""hot,"" and keeps putting off the return to Vermont as the show-biz possibilities proliferate. He's horny and high on power and glamour--his voice gets deeper and deeper--while Jane, fed up and neglected, heads home alone. Even after the TV-series production turns into a nightmare (crazy-quilt directives from network bozos, staff purges, disastrous ratings), unemployed Perry determines to stick it out in L.A., somehow get ""hot"" again; he maintains manic optimism with an assist from cocaine, blithely sacrificing his professorial tenure back home; he betrays exec-producer Ned, who's virtually the only gentleman in southern California. But finally, of course, after a farcical interlude with loony producer Larman Kling (""Harpo Marx with a voice"") and a script about a psychic dog, Perry realizes that he'd ""forgotten about friends. Forgotten about everything that mattered. Or used to matter."" And there's a saccharine fadeout on Perry returning to Vermont, ""moving toward the woman he loved."" Wakefield, a novelist (Going All the Way) who has done time in TV (James at 15), fills out this thin, predictable scenario with enough insider-ish, cartoony details to provide fairly steady amusement for media mavens. (One highlight: the moans and murmurs that ensue--""It's genocide. . .""--when Perry's series is scheduled opposite Dallas.) But there's too much blandness and sentimentality here for all-out Tinseltown satire--while Perry, instantly corrupted and superficially redeemed, is too much of a clown to take seriously."
A link to the author's page on wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Wakefield
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
LAY DOWN MY SWORD AND SHIELD by James Lee Burke
Finished Tu 8/13/19
This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I finished Sa 2/9/02 and bought at the North Branch for fifty cents.
This is the first in the Hollander Series and was published in 1971. It features Hackenberry Holland.
Hack is a lawyer with a rich family history. His grandfather was a sheriff and captured John Wesley Hardin. He knocked him off his horse and dragged him to jail. There are six bullet holes in the columns of Hack's front porch from Hardin's gun.
Hack is married to Verisa. She is a social climber and sticks with Hack because she believes he has a future in Texas politics.
Hack is partnered with his older brother, Baily, in a local law firm. Baily constantly complains to Hack about his drinking and his lackadaisical approach to their law practice.
Hack is deeply unhappy and uses huge amounts of Jack Daniels, beer, and wine to ease his pain.
Hack served in the Korean War and spent several months in a North Korean prison camp. He was shot through both calves and nearly died in captivity.
He is deeply conflicted about how he acted. He feels that he might have 'cooperated' with the enemy.
A man that he served with is a labor organizer and contacts Hack. The man is jailed on trumped up charges.
Hack travels to the border and takes the case. He meets the lovely Rie Valasquez who is of college age and helps organize the union.
They begin an affair.
Excellent descriptions of excessive drinking. Hack seems to always be driving the highways between San Antonio and Houston drunk (yet in command) in his Cadillac.
An excellent description of being in a labor demonstration and beaten by the police.
Excellent descriptions of life in a Korean prison camp.
I absolutely loved the book and will try to read everything by James Lee Burke.
From Google Books
"Vintage James Lee Burke: The first novel introducing the memorable Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, coming of age against the backdrop of the civil rights era in a sultry border town.
In hot and sultry Texas, Hack, an attorney and Korean War POW, is being pushed by his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends in the oil business to run for political office. But Hack would prefer to drink, look after his beloved horses, and represent the occasional long-shot pro bono case at his law firm. When Hack attempts to overturn a conviction for an old army buddy, he finds himself embroiled in the seamy underbelly of the Texas patronage system—and in the earliest beginnings of the United Farm Workers movement, led by a beautiful woman who speaks to his heart in a way no one else has. As Hack begins to bring justice to the underserved, he finds both a new love and a new purpose.
With his skillful blend of engaging plotlines, compelling characters, and graceful prose, James Lee Burke demonstrates the shimmering clarity of vision that has made him beloved by suspense fans all over the globe."
This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I finished Sa 2/9/02 and bought at the North Branch for fifty cents.
This is the first in the Hollander Series and was published in 1971. It features Hackenberry Holland.
Hack is a lawyer with a rich family history. His grandfather was a sheriff and captured John Wesley Hardin. He knocked him off his horse and dragged him to jail. There are six bullet holes in the columns of Hack's front porch from Hardin's gun.
Hack is married to Verisa. She is a social climber and sticks with Hack because she believes he has a future in Texas politics.
Hack is partnered with his older brother, Baily, in a local law firm. Baily constantly complains to Hack about his drinking and his lackadaisical approach to their law practice.
Hack is deeply unhappy and uses huge amounts of Jack Daniels, beer, and wine to ease his pain.
Hack served in the Korean War and spent several months in a North Korean prison camp. He was shot through both calves and nearly died in captivity.
He is deeply conflicted about how he acted. He feels that he might have 'cooperated' with the enemy.
A man that he served with is a labor organizer and contacts Hack. The man is jailed on trumped up charges.
Hack travels to the border and takes the case. He meets the lovely Rie Valasquez who is of college age and helps organize the union.
They begin an affair.
Excellent descriptions of excessive drinking. Hack seems to always be driving the highways between San Antonio and Houston drunk (yet in command) in his Cadillac.
An excellent description of being in a labor demonstration and beaten by the police.
Excellent descriptions of life in a Korean prison camp.
I absolutely loved the book and will try to read everything by James Lee Burke.
From Google Books
"Vintage James Lee Burke: The first novel introducing the memorable Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, coming of age against the backdrop of the civil rights era in a sultry border town.
In hot and sultry Texas, Hack, an attorney and Korean War POW, is being pushed by his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends in the oil business to run for political office. But Hack would prefer to drink, look after his beloved horses, and represent the occasional long-shot pro bono case at his law firm. When Hack attempts to overturn a conviction for an old army buddy, he finds himself embroiled in the seamy underbelly of the Texas patronage system—and in the earliest beginnings of the United Farm Workers movement, led by a beautiful woman who speaks to his heart in a way no one else has. As Hack begins to bring justice to the underserved, he finds both a new love and a new purpose.
With his skillful blend of engaging plotlines, compelling characters, and graceful prose, James Lee Burke demonstrates the shimmering clarity of vision that has made him beloved by suspense fans all over the globe."
Sunday, August 11, 2019
THE STUDIO by John Gregory Dunne
Finished Sa 8/10/19
This is a trade paperback that I have apparently not read, and there is no note as to when I bought it. When I watched the latest version of, 'A STAR IS BORN', I was surprised to learn that John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion wrote the 1976 version with Barbra Streisand and Kris, and just by accident I noticed the book on the shelf.
In 1967 Dunne was given permission to study all of the workings of the 20th Century Fox film and television studios. Three 'big' films were being produced during this time period; THE BOSTON STRANGLER, PLANET OF THE APES, and DR. DOLITTLE.
Richard Zanuck, the son of Daryl Zanuck, is running the studio. Fox had been around since the late nineteenth century and largely in the hands of the Zanucks.
This period was at the end of the idea that studios would hire many young actors, keep them under contract, teach them the craft of acting, and then use them exclusively in the studio's productions.
They would be paid $250 a week or about $2000 in today's money.
If a 'student' was in a hit show he or she would be asked to make paid appearances. They could be paid many thousands of dollars, but the studio had the right keep this money. However, if the show was a really big hit, the 'student's' lawyers would have more leverage to renegotiate.
Because 'THE SOUND OF MUSIC' did so well at opening in Minneapolis, so the three 1967 pictures opened there.
'DR. DOLITTLE' opening and several scenes and songs were cut before the grand opening in Los Angeles. However, at the Minneapolis opening the film's title was not released to the audience. The people just went in 'cold' to see a new release. This hurt 'DOLITTLE' because this kept out the younger audience.
There are a lot of behind the scenes anecdotes about the film making process and how much input the bosses and owners really had.
That was my biggest takeaway. Old, rich, white men really decided what was going to be made.
From the book's page at amazon:
" For one year Dunne went everywhere there was to go and talked to everyone worth talking to within the studio. He tracked every step of the creation of pictures like "Dr. Dolittle," "Planet of the Apes," and "The Boston Strangler." The result is a work of reportage that, thirty years later, may still be our most minutely observed and therefore most uproariously funny portrait of the motion picture business."
The book is obviously dated, and I wonder what the inner workings are like today. It's a slim book and I read it in a couple of days.
This is a trade paperback that I have apparently not read, and there is no note as to when I bought it. When I watched the latest version of, 'A STAR IS BORN', I was surprised to learn that John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion wrote the 1976 version with Barbra Streisand and Kris, and just by accident I noticed the book on the shelf.
In 1967 Dunne was given permission to study all of the workings of the 20th Century Fox film and television studios. Three 'big' films were being produced during this time period; THE BOSTON STRANGLER, PLANET OF THE APES, and DR. DOLITTLE.
Richard Zanuck, the son of Daryl Zanuck, is running the studio. Fox had been around since the late nineteenth century and largely in the hands of the Zanucks.
This period was at the end of the idea that studios would hire many young actors, keep them under contract, teach them the craft of acting, and then use them exclusively in the studio's productions.
They would be paid $250 a week or about $2000 in today's money.
If a 'student' was in a hit show he or she would be asked to make paid appearances. They could be paid many thousands of dollars, but the studio had the right keep this money. However, if the show was a really big hit, the 'student's' lawyers would have more leverage to renegotiate.
Because 'THE SOUND OF MUSIC' did so well at opening in Minneapolis, so the three 1967 pictures opened there.
'DR. DOLITTLE' opening and several scenes and songs were cut before the grand opening in Los Angeles. However, at the Minneapolis opening the film's title was not released to the audience. The people just went in 'cold' to see a new release. This hurt 'DOLITTLE' because this kept out the younger audience.
There are a lot of behind the scenes anecdotes about the film making process and how much input the bosses and owners really had.
That was my biggest takeaway. Old, rich, white men really decided what was going to be made.
From the book's page at amazon:
" For one year Dunne went everywhere there was to go and talked to everyone worth talking to within the studio. He tracked every step of the creation of pictures like "Dr. Dolittle," "Planet of the Apes," and "The Boston Strangler." The result is a work of reportage that, thirty years later, may still be our most minutely observed and therefore most uproariously funny portrait of the motion picture business."
The book is obviously dated, and I wonder what the inner workings are like today. It's a slim book and I read it in a couple of days.
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