THE BLUE AFTERNOON by William Boyd

Finished Sa 12/18/21

This is one of my ancient trade paperbacks that I first completed in two days over the Labor Day weekend, Tu 9/3/96. 

Set in Los Angeles, 1936; and on Luzon (largest island of the Philippines), Manila (capitol city), 1902. 

An elderly man contacts a woman in Los Angeles. He tells her that he is her 'real' father. This occurs in 1936.

Then the story switches to the Philippines in 1902 and tells the story of his love affair and professional tribulations.  

From a review on Goodreads:

" The themes covered here are the occupation of the Philippines by America, the birth of aviation, the improvement of the surgical science at the beginning of the 1900s. And love. Physical attraction, love between couples, love between parents and offspring, and relationships without love. Rather than providing a list of correct historical details you get a feel for the era. It is not the details but rather a sense of what conditions were like. In this book you are confronted with the filth of earlier surgical practices; you are confronted with the atrocities committed during America's occupation; the exhilaration of flying for the first time. What you get is more an emotional understanding than a mental learning of historical facts. I want to feel myself in another person's skin. I am less interested in the historical details. I will soon forget the historical details if I don't feel an emotional empathy for those who lived through those times.

This is a mystery story too. There are murders. I personally think the ending is clear, at least we know how Kay Fischer interprets the events. What is not conclusively known is not that important, and this is an important message of the book."

From the review at Publishers Weekly:

"in 1936, Los Angeles architect Kay Fisher is approached by elderly Salvadore Carriscant, who tells her he's her father and whisks her off on an improbable journey to Lisbon. Despite that unconvincing framing section, a fascinating love story-cum-murder mystery occupies the heart of the narrative, which flashes back to 1902 Manila. There, the young Carriscant, a brilliant surgeon, falls in love with Daphne Sieverance, the wife of an American colonel whose troops are stationed in the Philippines to quell a bloody insurrection. When two American soldiers are murdered by someone who eviscerates their internal organs, Carriscant helps the chief of the constabulary, the improbably named Paton Bobby, to locate the killer, whom Carriscant suspects but cannot accuse. In this middle section of the novel Boyd suspensefully orchestrates some diabolically clever events, including a fatal air crash, a scene reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet and a shocking climax that will send readers reeling."

I enjoyed the book and would read more by William Boyd. I'll check him out on Amazon Books.   

PROPHET OF DEATH by Pete Earley

Finished Mo 12/14/21

This is one of my ancient hardbacks and I first completed it 'early morning' on Thanksgiving, 1997.

The story of Jeffrey Lundgren, a preacher and self proclaimed prophet in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He believed that he was called by god to murder a husband, wife, and their three children. 

Lundgren was able to convince his wife and several church members that this was what god wanted.

For his whole life this guy thought nothing of the law or what other people thought. He would constantly steal and then coverup his crimes.

He was also a sexual freak and was attracted to coprophilia- sexual arousal and pleasure from feces. 

His wife, Alice believed, even as a teenager that she would marry a man who was destined for spiritual greatness.

An interesting take-away: "For two hundred thousand devout adherents, the spiritual center of world Mormonism is not Salt Lake City but independence, Missouri." Lundgren got his start there, but the killings occured in Kirtland, Ohio which is where Joseph Smith, Jrl, established his ministry and built the first Mormon temple. This antique temple is where Lundgren gathered a circle of followers who fell under the spell of his oratory and his 'reform movement'. Part of the church wanted to allow women to become priests, but Lundgren and the conservatives felt that this was against god's law. 

I thought that I had thrown away all of my True Crime books, but I'm glad I got a chance to reread this interesting non-fiction book. 

Jeffery Lundgren was executed in Ohio in 2006 and his wife got five life sentences.

Lundgren's page at Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Lundgren

CHILDWOLD by Joyce Carol Oates

 I read to p. 139 (half of the book) by Fr 12/3/21

This is one of my ancient paperbacks and no record of when I bought it and this was my first attempt.

It's the story of a fourteen year old girl who has an affair with man nearly forty.

He's a rich man from a prominent family and she is from a poor family of many children.

The story unfolds with several different points of view.

Page-long paragraphs that went on forever.

From New York Times and posted in Goodreads:

"This is the story of an enchantment and its dramatic consequences. At the centre is the frustrated love of a man in his forties for a fourteen-year-old girl whom he meets and befriends.

Drawn into her strange family and the haunting world of Childwold, he discovers that, while others find freedom for themselves, for him there is no escape.

"A blowsy mother whose many children have many fathers; her 14-year-old daughter, Laney, and Kasch, an anguished intellectual who loves them both...The novel's tight Oedipal triangle opens into a triple alliance against age and aggression as each person tries to turn the biological clock back towards innocence. Laney's mother wants to bear children to narrow the world to a child's room. Laney starves herself to stop her menstrual cycle and prolong her childhood. Kasch in his insanity is harmless, nonsexual, helpless...Drawn by his vulnerability in the same way that Kasch was drawn by her poverty, Laney may cling to Kasch and he to her as children cling together in the dark." (New York Times, 11/28/76)" 

This was not one of Joyce Carol Oates's more well received works, but I would give her another chance if I ran across one of her novels. 

PROVINCES OF NIGHT by William Gay

Finished Mo 11/29/21 

I ordered this hardback book from Amazon and received it Tu 11/23/21.

I saw the film, 'BLOODWORTH' on Amazon Prime and wasn't wild about the movie, but thought the book would be well worth a look and I wsn't wrong. The writing is some of the best that I've seen in months. 

'BLOODWORTH' 2010 film starring Val Kilmer, Kris Kristofferson, Hilary Duff, Reece Thompson, and Dwight Yoakam. 

Set in 1952 in very rural Tennessee and concerns the men in the Bloodworth family. There are lots of brothers, cousins, fathers, and uncles and it's a little confusing, but still very interesting. 

E.F. Bloodworth is a banjo playing wandering and he has been on the road for a couple of decades and he is returning to his home town. His wife is mentally deteriorating and the family tries to keep his return a secret from her. 

The Brothers Bloodworth:

Warren- a womanizing alcoholic

Boyd- his wife left him and traveled to the big city and he's trying to get her back.

Brady- puts hexes on people that he doesn't like. He arranged for a dilapidated trailer for E.F.

Fleming- The smartest of the brothers. He likes to read and is trying to be a writer. In the movie one of the brothers referred to his typewriter as a 'girly machine'. 

The author's page at Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gay_(author)

FUZZ by Ed McBain

 Finished Tu 11/23/21

This is a paperback that I don't know when I bought it, but this was my first time through it.

This is one of the '87th Precinct Mysteries' and was published in 1968. When I was reading the book I thought that it was one of the first in the series, but the first one was released in 1956 and 'FUZZ' is #22 in the series.

This one deals with the arch-villian, 'The Deaf Man'. This master criminal extorts the city in a very novel way. He alerts authorities that he will kill a minor government official unless he receives $5,000. They don't pay, the official is killed, and the Deaf Man asked $50,000 for the next official on his list. Again, the ransom is not paid and the man is murdered. 

Here's where it gets interesting. The Deaf Man sends out one hundred letters asking for $5000 for each name on the list. 

Also, there is a subplot about a couple of youths who are setting homeless men on fire as they sleep. Steve Carella was posing as a bum and was burned by these guys. 

There is an excellent article on Wikipedia about all of the cops and criminals that are covered in the '87th Precinct Series'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/87th_Precinct

A review from GoodReads:

"In Fuzz, a master criminal nicknamed the Deaf Man returns to bedevil the detectives of the 87th Precinct. As is often the case in this series, the weather plays an important part in the book. It's the middle of winter; the snow is deep, and the temperatures are freezing. It's not fit weather for man or beast, but the criminals are not taking the winter off and so neither can the police.

In one particularly aggravating series of crimes, someone is pouring gasoline on sleeping homeless men and then setting them on fire. Detective Steve Carella goes under cover in order to catch the killers, but this means he's going to spend a lot of time freezing in alleys and doorways, playing bait for the attackers. It won't be any fun at all, and it's going to be a particularly frustrating assignment.

While Carella is thus occupied, someone calls the 87th Precinct and demands that he be paid $5,000 or he will shoot the Parks Commissioner. Almost everyone, including the Parks Commissioner, assumes the call is a prank. Sadly it isn't, and after the Parks Commissioner is shot and killed, the caller, who turns out to be the old nemesis of the 87th, the Deaf Man, steps up his game and puts the city in a panic."

The writing is rudimentary, but it's an entertaining read and the 'cop banter' is sharp and funny. 

Ed McBain was a pen name for Salvatore Albert Lombino. 'Ed McBain' was the most notable of his many names. Evan Hunter was second and he wrote 'BLACKBOARD JUNGLE' under this pseudonym.

THE SICILIAN by Mario Puzo

Finished Fr 11/19/21

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I had never read and when I bought the book is not mentioned. 

It's 'background' on the GODFATHER films and Puzo's novels of those characters. None of 'THE SICILIAN' takes place in New York, all the action is in and around Palermo and the northwest corner of Sicily.   

The book is mostly about a Sicilian bandit named Salvatore 'Turi' Giuliano on the island of Sicily during the 1940's and early 50's.

He's a kind of 'Robin Hood' hero. A violent and cruel man that puts his men and the rural people of Sicily above his personal needs and desires. 

Turi's best friend and second in command, Gaspare 'Aspanu' Pisciotta is the downfall of the gang. Pisciotta betrays and kills Turi before he can escape to America.

These two characters are based on real Sicilian gang leaders.

The political and social situation of rural Sicily is the most interesting part of the book. The aristocrats and the mafia rule the land and the powers that be are terrified of anything that smacks of socialism. 

Legally peasants can use land unused by the aristocracy, but if they try to enforce their rights the aristocrats will have them killed. 

A link to the book's page on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sicilian

I was surprised to learn that Mario Puzo wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film and its 1980 sequel. 

BRIGHT ANGEL TIME by Martha McPhee

Finished Sa 11/6/21

The title refers to layers of rock that record the earth's age. Eight year old Kate's (the novel's protagonist) father is a geologist and she wants to see the Grand Canyon and learn the secrets of the layers of rock that reveal thousdands of years of history. 

The novel is set in America in 1970. The geologist has left the family and mom has taken up with a hippie hustler named Anton. They travel from New Jersey across the country to California. Kate is the youngest and she has two older sisters, Jane and Julia.

Dad leaves the family on July 10, 1969. This is the day that American astronauts walked on the moon for the first time.

According to what I wrote on the flyleaf I purchased the book after a motorcycle ride on the VT 1100 to The Old Book Barn in Forsyth, Il on Su 8/10/03. There is no indication that I finished the book.

It's the first novel by Martha McPhee and she's gone on to create a following because she's a great writer.

The novel is a chronicle of their lives as seen through the eyes of eight year old Kate.

Some of what happens to her is pretty tragic, but it doesn't register because she's so young.

There's a possible rape scene involving Anton that's skimmed over and Kate's dropping acid isn't given the attention that it probably deserves. I guess an eight year old doesn't really have the depth to understand what is happening.

When the family was together the girls all wore matching outfits that were handmade by Eve, Kate's mother. Eve ironed the family's underware- very anal-retentive.  

From Goodreads:

"Set in the early 1970s, Bright Angel Time is a dazzling first novel about eight-year-old Kate and her two sisters, whose lives are turned upside down when their mother falls in love with Anton, a mysterious, seductive therapist with five children of his own.

'One of the most shocking and powerful books about childhood I've ever read. There is a whole generation of people waiting for this particular story to be told.'"

Someone wrote the following at Goodreads:

"Some folks should not have kids because they haven't grown up themselves, and when they do, it's a miracle any resulting children survive. The book may be set in the 70s, but some things never change!"

The Kirkus review:

"Yet another coming-of-age debut novel, this one dragging on a bit as it evokes the '60s-style wanderings of a divorced housewife and her three unhappy daughters. Until 1969, eight-year-old Kate lived in perfect contentment in a white house in rural New Jersey with her two older sisters, her geologist father, and her beautiful blond mother, a housewife named Eve. Unfortunately, that was the year that Dad elected to run off with his lover, and Eve, after a depression that kept her in bed for months, fell in love with an itinerant Gestalt therapist named Anton and allowed him to uproot their lives. Yearning to experience life truly in a way her anal-retentive husband never had, Eve follows Anton to the Esalen center in California. The couple gather up Eve's three well-brought-up daughters, put them in a camper with Anton's five hippie kids, and take off for a tour of the American West. The new, extended family wanders aimlessly through deserts and semi-abandoned towns, sneaking into unoccupied motel rooms for showers, dropping in on Indian settlements and millionaires' resorts, and absorbing various hitchhikers into their fold, while the children bicker and the adults preach free love along the way. Meanwhile, Kate tries to accustom herself to the loss of her father and happy former life, working hard (but often failing) to see the good in Anton's motherless children and to forgive her own newly liberated mom. Eve's reckless devotion to Anton has its consequences—one daughter becomes deathly ill, another runs away, and Kate herself becomes a religious fanatic for a while—and yet Eve's decision to return home at last seems motivated more by fatigue than by lessons learned, and it's unclear who, if anyone, has really come of age. McPhee's story holds interest, but much like its protagonists, it tends to wander without direction, in the end failing to provide much of a catharsis."

I really liked the book and I will read more by Martha McPhee