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".

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. 

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

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