Small Fictions & Novelties

Repentance and Redemption of a Not-So-Reliable Wife

2010-09-30T08:17:00.004-06:00

The triangle has been a standard plot device since Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, but Robert Goolick twists those three straight lines into a convoluted spiral circling in on itself in his second book, A Reliable Wife.

This is a lush read, a Catherine/Heathcliff read, a Dickensian trek into turn of the century Americana. The language is elegiac, a sorrow that turns on hope but expects despair. Goolick takes the reader into the hearts of his protagonists and opens the secrets they keep from one another. Ralph Truitt wants a wife, but has no hope of love. Catherine Land wants love and money and answers his advertisement, but has dark plans of her own and a lover in the shadows. The lover has his own secrets and drives the plot toward tragedy.

There are muted undertones of classic literature as the plot unfolds. Ralph Truitt is a Jean Valjean, Victor Hugo's saint nee sinner in Les Miserables. There are hints of Fantine, the prostitute who gave everything for her daughter, in Catherine; however, whereas Fantine lost her beauty and her health and ended impoverished while her Cosette prospered, it is the opposite for Catherine who lives in wealth with Truitt but loses her sister to prostitution and vice.

The theme of the "bad woman" healed by simple country life, living things, and a steady man mirrors The Harvester by Gene Stratton Porter, and has much of the tone of that book, but Goolick's writing is much more intense, erotically sensual, but restrained. The sexual energy and tension of the story pulls the reader from chapter to chapter and builds a sense of dread as the pent emotions move toward release. This is not a short book, but I read it in one night because there was no stopping place.

This is a prodigal story of a father who is the sinner and the boy who returns home to forgive or avenge, and in the homecoming two characters find redemption, but it is the inevitability of evil that creates the tension as the story reaches its end. We as readers know all and know that the ending cannot be good for these flawed people, but we have come to hope, just as Truitt hopes, for ultimate forgiveness and grace.

As Goolick warns in repeated incantation: These things happen.

The Book of Eli--NOT

2010-09-28T22:35:00.000-06:00

Every now and then, I don't get what I think I'll get. The Book of Eli by Sam Moffie is one of those mistakes. I thought I was getting the book version of the movie that has just come out (yes, we ordered the movie), but it turns out to be entirely different. A reviewer on Amazon suggests that Moffie hurried this book to press to take advantage of the movie release. I don't know about that, but I'm definitely feeling snookered.

The book is a knock-off of The Shack. Were I as crude as Mr. Moffie's protagonist, I would call it a knock-up of that inspirational tale. Eli, the hero, is a good man, almost perfect except for one flaw that proves to be fatal--literally. There are many clinical terms for Eli's sin: copulation, intercourse, sexual union, but Eli is a plain-spoken man. He loves to screw.

This bit of slang is carried throughout the book, nothing unusual in 2010 novels, but somewhat startling in a book that pretends to inspiration. Eli reaches new pinnacles of sensation in a liaison with his favorite adulterous partner and cries out ecstatically, "God! God!!" And he gets God. He dies, goes to heaven and his tutelage begins.

Groucho Marx is his guiding spirit as he visits Sigmund Freud with questions about sexuality, Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, Madelyn Murray O'Hare, Ayn Rand, and his own mother. Groucho is the excuse for several one-liners and provides the secondary theme of the novel. Sex first, jokes next. There are some truly lame Jewish jokes. After a time, Eli's fixation on sex becomes a joke, a vaudevillian schtick that even Eli eventually finds tiresome.

What is interesting about the book is that, for all its irreverence, its explicit language, its extreme secular tone, it seems authentic. Eli is no saint. He's a regular guy, a sinner like most of us, with an obsession with sex that is very honest, but not only does he have an innate god-sense, he is also accepted by a patient creator. It isn't what he is, but what he will become that is the interest of heaven. God creates, after all. Moffie's thesis seems to be that the "good guys" didn't succeed, and now it's time for a regular guy to try.

It's a quick read. I read it in one sitting and found it better than I had anticipated. This is a book that many readers will find offensive, but the reader looking for a secular slant on spiritual living will find this book more palatable than more traditional inspirational writing. The message is neither Christian nor Jewish nor representative of any other faith tradition, but it is found in most faith traditions. We are here to look after one another. We can't do that if we are cheating or exploiting those around us. This is what Eli must learn and what, in a racy, unconventional way, Moffie tries to teach us.

An Interminable Year with John Irving

2009-11-15T19:56:00.004-06:00

John Irving takes longer to get to the point of his stories than any author I know. He is not a lazy writer. Brilliant. Infuriating. Frustrating. But not lazy.

I reread A Widow for One Year after trying to tell a friend and patron what it was about the book that had captured me. After slogging through it on a second read, now I'm not sure. Maybe what made this title stand out was the out-of-humor author. There is a tremendously funny scene early on when Ted Cole, the father of the heroine, is chased down by one of his many amours gone wrong, but this is the first book where I noticed that Irving himself seemed out of sorts. His quirky humor is missing.

It is a writers' book, the saga of Ruth Cole, novelist, from her childhood though a marriage, widowhood, and remarriage. Her father is a writer and illustrator of children's books. Marion, Ruth's mother, who leaves them, is a writer. Her mother's young lover, Eddie, who never stops loving this much older woman, is a writer. Her quirky best friend, Hannah, is a journalist. By the time we get to Harry, the Amsterdam policeman who tries to find Ruth after she witnesses the murder of a prostitute, we are as happy to see a reader as Ruth is attracted to him.

It is classic Irving. He takes us back before the beginning to tell the story of the mother who can never stop grieving for her dead sons, the lazy writer father who lures mothers in as models for his children's books then draws pornography, and the child Ruth, born to replace the two lost boys. The despondant Marion is planning to leave her husband and child, fearing that she will love the little girl and lose her, and spends her last summer in a sexual liason with Eddie, a teenage boy. This event frames the story. Both Eddie and Ruth live in anticipation of the return of Marion.

Fast forward. Ruth is a successful novelist with a history of bad boyfriends and a best friend, Hannah, with a history as the bad girlfriend. Eddie reenters Ruth's life and his undying love for her lost mother, provides a bond of friendship for the two which continues through the book. Ruth is considering marriage with her editor but is unsure and puts off any decision until after a book tour in Europe that will eventually lead her to Amsterdam, the pivotal destination of this long, convoluted story.

The part of the book that I remembered and reread to discover why it affected me so, takes place in the room of a prostitute in Amsterdam--a room all in red. The imagery is more vivid than usual in this section and, even after several years and forgetting most of the plot, the room remains in my memory. Irving does his usual roundabout tease, dropping hints about it, taking us elsewhere, coming back to let us see the outside, taking us away, returning to enter, taking us out again, and finally placing us in the closet with Ruth where she witnesses the murder. In writing about what she has experienced, Ruth leaves the crumb that will draw the hawk to her.

In part, this book is a fictional treatise on experiential writing. Irving takes us into the heads of his characters as they plot their books and we see how their experiences move through their writing, even as Ruth, at least, argues that it is all imagination. It is imagination, but it is imagination that feeds on the friends and family in the author's life. In weaving the tales these writers create, Irving lets us watch the creative process unfold from initial idea to final creation.

But I'm left with questions as I work my way through this tortuous review that seems to mirror the length of its subject. He is a formula writer. Why does he begin so far back in the lives of his protagonists? Why do we have to know about the mothers and fathers and grandparents of the hero or heroine? Why do we have to walk through several lives to get to the pivotal moment, the climax, of the story? Is he trying to show us that every event is the sum of the multiplicity of decisions that have gone before? Or does he just like to spin all the multi-colored strands into one final plot, tightly knotted? Or is he playing games with us?

He uses sexual metaphor freely in all his work--is his methodology an extension of that? The long, slow tease that leaves us begging for the denouement, and the deep satisfaction when it comes.

Even when I toss one of his books into a corner, vowing I'll not read another, I know. I'll come back for more. He is a master of the craft. I can't resist.

On the Road with Cormac McCarthy

2009-10-08T10:39:00.003-06:00

Cormac McCarthy's book, The Road, is number one on the AbeBooks' customers' list of the Top Ten Most Depressing Reads. We added it to the collection in April of 2007, and by the time I had time to read it, I was not in the frame of mind to survive it. Last weekend, my sis and I took our fall sister trip and the waves of laughter that rolled us home left a vast store of endorphines on the beach. I spent some of that euphoria the last two nights reading The Road.

Let no one tell you it is depressing. It is the most hopeful of books, one in which there is nothing material upon which to base hope, no future, no brighter tomorrow, yet the light refuses to go out.

In the apocalyptic future, in a dead world of ash and burnt-out cities, in a world where only a tiny spark of life survives with nothing but itself to feed upon, a father and son travel the road from the cold north of what was America toward the southern coast, and warmth. The mother, understanding that there is no life left to be lived, has embraced death and left her two males to walk the bleak path alone.

The boy asks two questions of his father, again and again, whether for his own reassurance or for the father's remembrance. Are we the good guys? Do we carry the fire?

The bad guys are capturing and holding people to breed and eat. That 's all there is left of living sustenance. Those who refuse to cannibalize humanity forage for what remnant of canned goods others have overlooked, and it is obvious that as time continues to pass, the only hope of survival will finally lie in destroying one another. Ultimately, Death will not be cheated.

Yet, in this burnt-out world where man-directed flames have destroyed all that can sustain life, the fire the good guys carry takes on a poignant meaning. The boy carries the fire and the father carries the boy, though the father does not have the light. Once we, the readers, understand this painful truth, the author spins out the ending for us, honest and sad and correct. We are ready to accept it when it comes. It is both reassurance and warning.

I am in awe of this writer. He actually accomplishes what Hemingway and Joyce attempted. His writing is spare, stark in its simplicity, but like a poem that does not reveal that it is poetry. Fragmented. With only essential punctuation. He draws us in with the cadence of modern speech and opens our world to us using form as function.

And yet, he is kind. There is no point at which the reader finds himself on the brink of collapse or screaming for relief. McCarthy gives us vignettes of simplicity just a beat before we realize we need them. He tends us well. There are three moments in the book where the travelers are allowed the comfort of shelter and food--moments essential to the father who carries the corruption of the old culture, the need for the comforts of the corrupted culture that has been destroyed. The boy does not need them. He transcends the material. But we, the readers who are living in the culture that gives rise to this devastating end, we must have these moments to sustain our ability to follow the path to the end.

McCarthy tells us the truth. Like most of us, he carries the fire, but the fire is not in him.

He knows.

Say It Isn't So, Joe!

2009-10-07T11:51:00.005-06:00

Oh no! Not a sequel! Please, say it isn't so!

It took me a while to get used to the writing style of Dr. Joe D. Dillsaver in These Bones Shall Rise, a mystery/adventure set in eastern Oklahoma, but I liked his hero, Doctor SK Ross, and followed the story to its non-conclusion. With all the loose ends left dangling, I thought--Well, he's a first time author; maybe he couldn't figure out how to rescue his characters from the danger he had put them in. Then the horrible thought came--A Sequel! Oh No! Another Series Writer! ...and this is a home town boy. Well, a home state fellow, anyway. That pretty much insures that I'll have to buy the next book--and the economic downturn has left us really short on cash. Sigh.

I enjoyed the book. The short, simple sentences insure grammatical correctness--near-abouts, anyway--but also give the book just the right flavor. It reads like a book written by a criminal justice professor (CJP), and it feels like a gentle excursion into a CJP's fantasy. It's formula all the way, from the bad guys holed up in the backwoods eastern Oklahoma cave cloning drones to take over the world to the desperate run for cover when the cave explodes. There's ancient Christian relics, a worldwide search for clues, the Cherokee elder, truly evil (but disconcertingly likeable) right-wing conspirators, and the amateur sleuth--all the elements of an adventure story aka movie set-up.

What makes the book work is Dr. Dillsaver himself as he draws his hero, SK, in his own image. As I read, it's like reading something one of my former students might have written--very personal, very intimate, very confessional. As the story spins out to its non-conclusion, I find myself enjoying the evening visit with the author. In this case, the story is nothing, and the characters exist just to provide words for the author, and the author is a pleasant companion for the cool Oklahoma evenings we are beginning to enjoy.

And, yes, I will purchase the sequel.

Buckley Makes the Whistle

2009-09-26T20:32:00.004-06:00

I've been in a blue funk for over a week and tried Evanovich to raise my spirits. Nada. Took home a movie--erk! (see the review in Pics & Flix) Then one of my favorite people donated this off-beat little title by Christopher Buckley: Supreme Courtship. That's Christopher as in son to William F. (Mr. Conservative). The pressing question was whether a political novel would find a readership in Hennessey.

I googled the boy and came across an interview in which he describes life on the book signing circuit. Laughing out loud and reading passages to Karen, I decided he was funny, political or not. So the book came home with me for consideration and I have laughed my way through it, reading chapters to my determindedly apolitical spouse who shared the mirth. Oh, yeah. It's going in the collection.

President of the U.S., Donald Vandercamp is the ultimate Conservative, vetoing every spending bill that crosses his desk and incurring the wrath of both parties in Congress. In the ensuing war, his Supreme Court nominees are ripped to shreds and thrown aside. One night at Camp David, he tunes into the wildly popular reality-courtroom drama, Courtroom Six, where spunky Texas, down-home Judge Pepper Cartwright dispenses common-sense judgements. To the chagrin of all Washington insiders, the President chooses to put her forward as his next nominee.

What could have been a cute one-liner novella spins out from this original set-up into a convoluted, hilarious inside expose of Washington political maneuevering. Do not be deceived. This is not dry political humor. This is Saturday Night Live, Laugh-In, TV sit-com--all rendered with intelligence and affection by a man who lived in the shadow of one of the Founding Fathers of Conservatism.

Buckley pokes fun at all players--conservative, liberal, ethical and corrupt. But the fun of the book is in the characterizations. Pepper is so out of her element, the President is so wonderfully mid-western and genuine, and the plot twists that pull them along are so convoluted and surprising that the reader does not want the story to stop.

Follow this, if you can--Buckley makes it easy, I find it hard to condense: President Vandercamp does not intend to run for a second term, determined to do the very best he can for the country without the distraction of a campaign; however, corrupt and inept Dexter Mitchell (former Senator and highly popular star of TV drama POTUS in which he plays--the President Of The United States) decides to capitalize on his popularity and run for the office. The Congress, not realizing that Vandercamp does not intend to run for the second term, passes an amendment to the Constitution limiting the President to one term. Vandercamp decides to run after all, on principle and not willing to place the US in the hands of the inept Mitchell. The question arises, if the amendment is ratified before the President wins the election, which has precedence? the amendment ratified by the representatives of the people or the election won by the popular and electoral votes of the populace?

Of course, the Supreme Court will have to decide and Pepper Cartwright, his nominee, is crucial to the decision.

This author sees into his people, all the way down, and still loves them and hands us his microscope so that we can see what he sees. It is affectionate and full of light and refreshing in this day of poisoned pens and political broadsides. Maybe the sun WILL come out tomorrow...

Buckley tells us that "making the whistle" is a rodeo term for riding the bull all the way to the whistle. He not only makes the whistle, he rides the bull out of the pen.

Chris, your dad would be proud.

Not So Finger Lickin' Good

2009-09-20T21:06:00.002-06:00

We women eagerly await Janet Evanovich's newest Stephanie Plum novels, but the excitement over Finger Lickin' Fifteen was somewhat less than times past. I think we're ready for Stephanie to settle down with Joe and let the series come to an end. At least, I'm ready for the series to come to an end.

All the usual characters are here, Grandma Mazur, Lula, Ranger, Morelli, but the action is a little flat, like Evanovich isn't really trying. I usually am laughing out loud by the 2nd page or thereabouts, but not this time. It is funny...just not laugh out loud funny.

Lula witnesses a decapitation and then becomes the target of maniacal murderers trying to remove her from the scene. She moves in with Stephanie and the obligitory mayhem begins. Meanwhile, Ranger is having problems with his security business, break-ins that he can't seem to get under control. In a move that is possibly unwise, Evanovich makes him less than perfect. Stephanie is called in to help him catch the perpetrator.

Ranger talks too much. Sounds too ordinary. Even that sexy, one liner, "Babe" loses it's punch--overused. The characterization of Morelli is still right on and fresh, but the relationship seems hopeless. We've come two books too far and, though we understand that Morelli is right for Stephanie, we've also realized that Stephanie isn't right for Joe.

There is one haunting passage in the book that is not funny at all, and the writing is a cut above the fluff genre. Stephanie is speaking of Ranger, and she says, "I've never been able to find the place he would call home. Maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe he carries it inside him. Or maybe it's a place he hasn't yet discovered." With those lines, she brings him out of the bat cave and makes him human. And she leaves us conflicted.

Fluff novels should never leave readers conflicted.

The Shack

2009-02-07T23:52:00.001-06:00

I am a firm believer that there is a time and place for everything, especially when it comes to certain books. Not any book can be read at anytime. Such as "The Great Gatsby". I have attempted to read that book a hundred times before and for a long time I was unable to finish it. Then one hot day sitting at the side of the road between Lahoma and Mino I just happened to find the book in my car. Those who really know me know that I never go anywhere for long periods of times without having a book. Those who know me also know that if there is a big todo about a book I will read it. Case in point the Harry Potter books. People start making a fuss and I am now addicted.

The same with "The Shack" by Wm. Paul Young. I have seen this book many times when I have ventured into the Christian book store, but never looked twice at it. The same when I have gone to Walmart. I am not a inspirational ficition reader. I am more of a read anything person other than westerns, scifi, horror, or inspirational ficition. The last set of books I have read like that are the "Left Behind" series, that I have, no pun intended, left behind due to boredum and a very whiny anti-christ. But "The Shack" is a book unto its own.

Not giving too much of it away; it is about a man name Mack who has had a great loss in his life. Which many of us has had. Until one day he receives a very odd letter in his mailbox. Not knowing if it is a horrible trick or if it could possibly be from God, he decides to return to the scene of his "great sadness". From here the story gets powerful, somtimes long winded. I have learned a lot from this book, fiction or no. If you have ever been in the place that this character has been, which I can honestly say I have been at least once in my life, then you really need to read this book.

I believe that this is one of those books that you have to be in a certain place in your life to read, but when you do, you will be transformed.

The Bus Stops Here

2009-02-07T23:36:00.004-06:00

The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck is (I know, I know) not a new title--technically; nonetheless...

I pulled our old copy for replacement and discovered just how hard it is to replace this title. It's not one of Steinbeck's better known works. Being a fan of the man, I took our copy home to read while waiting on its replacement. It is classic Steinbeck.

With a few carefully chosen words, he creates a cast of characters that run to type: the gorgeous blonde, the manipulative wife and her uninspired businessman husband, the star-struck girl, the loser kid, fast-talking salesman, and troublesome old guy. But from his pen, they emerge fresh and real--little people with big troubles thrown together for a bus ride on an old vehicle that starts the book up on a lift for repairs.

The two characters who are Real in this menage of stereotypes are Juan, the bus driver and host at the bus stop, and Mildred, a college student attracted to Juan from their first meeting. Both seem to be observers of the others and their coming together is less a seduction and more the natural gravition of like to like.

Steinbeck is always loving with his characters and, though this is far from his best book, his characters live and breath and talk and change, discovering things about themselves on this short journey to nowhere. Juan in particular, who thought he was going to walk away from his wife and all responsibilities, discovers that he can't do it. He is a responsible man, after all.

We knew it all along.

There are echos of this book in the movie, Bus Stop, written by George Axelrod from the William Inge play. The obvious similarity is found in the blonde--Marilyn Monroe creates te role of the curvacious blonde. Now I've got to watch the movie to find the other parallels!

The Letters

2008-12-16T22:55:00.002-06:00

When I first reviewed for possible purchase The Letters by Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger, I was intrigued by the craft: A story told in letters from husband and wife with a male author creating the husband and a female author creating the wife. The book did not disappoint.

It tells the story of Sam and Hadley, a loving couple who lost their only son in a tragic airplane crash in Alaska. The trauma of grief tears at the fabric of their marriage and they begin divorce proceedings. Sam goes to Alaska to visit the accident scene; Hadley goes to a lonely cabin by the sea to paint. As the letters go back and forth between them, grief, anger, forgiveness, redemption, and finally hope and love are worked out in words. Simple plot.

But the overall effect of the book was more complex. As a new and somewhat reluctant visitant in the cyber world, timorously edging into email correspondance, discussion forums, and chat, I am relearning something Renaissance People forgot they knew. The written word is powerful, emotive, and creates connections that are more spiritual than intellectual. Sam and Hadley take the cyber-savvy reader on a familiar journey, confessional and revealing.

Rice and Monninger have taken the stuff of late night emails, added a plot (something real life seems to lack), and allowed us to read over their characters' shoulders as connection is made. Words knit souls together with alchemy that goes beyond mere physical chemistry to make minds one. The authors have done what fiction writers do best, take us out onto the ice of our social interaction and show us the cracks and fissures--and the heroism of those who, when the ice breaks and floats out to sea, find their way home.

Monster Magic

2008-03-10T15:09:00.002-06:00

Is it enough to say I enjoyed Lauren Groff's first novel, The Monsters of Templeton, for personal reasons too complex to reveal? Probably not. So, then to facts:

My daughter called me last week and insisted that I read this book telling me that she had seen us in it, she had seen me, and her excitement level was such that I picked it up for my weekend reading. From the very first page, before the story even began, I found my own words looking back in print at me. How facts obscure truth and fiction frees it, how layers of meaning fall from language for each succeeding generation to find and lose and loose to find again, how people are deeper and cleaner and meaner and both less and more pure than they appear on the surface.

No, I am not the aging hippy mother who fried her mind on drugs then found religion. I am not the brilliant, golden-girl who fell and returned home in disgrace with a tiny one ill-conceived within. Neither am I any of the monstrous forebears this fallen heroine seeks out in her family geneology, or the impossible poignant monster pulled from the lake. I am the writer who sees the dance of words spinning out a story both cunningly crafted and painfully sweet.

This is a writer's book and I hope it will do a magic thing for non-writers--take them into a writer's mind with all its ghosts and voices and richly imagined characters, and let them see for themselves what it is to create a living thing--a story richly told.

There are few writers I would like to meet. Ms. Groff, you are one.

Red Leaves Leaves Me Cold

2008-02-24T11:00:00.002-06:00

Red Leaves by Thomas H. Cook is a devastating book. Excellent writing. Careful, trim plotting. Clearly drawn characters. Terrible suspense. It has all the elements and follows through to its chilling conclusion keeping every promise. It is this mastery of the craft that defeats the reader and leaves him cold and sorrowing with the protagonist.

I picture Rod Serling with his clipped, analytical voice: "Enter Eric Moore, family man..." , and then we watch this perfect life dissolve into a horrible unreality come true. His teenage son is suspected of kidnapping, molesting, and murdering an 8 year old girl, and the father-narrator takes us through the corrosive suspicions that splay out from this accusation to touch his father, mother, sister, brother, wife, lawyer-friend, and child.

What is going on inside of you? The story takes us to the larger question we all must grapple with if we hope to live in peace with those we love. We can never know what is happening in the minds of others, even those to whom we have the closest ties. The author leaves us with the realization that when trust is gone, it doesn't matter what is happening behind those closed doors--good or evil, lack of trust destroys it all.

A (Yawn) Round-Heeled Woman

2008-02-05T16:14:00.000-06:00

Jane Juska has written an account of her life and times as a (see title) round-heeled woman and she means the title just as it sounds. Tired of a sexless life after her divorce and nearing 70, she posts a singles ad with the blatant assertion that she wants sex and a lot of it. She will not go gentle into that good night.

The book is an exploration of the trauma of aging and, as a 60+ female, I identified strongly with her emotions and character; however, this book is non-fiction and couldn't be tied neatly at the end with a satisfying finish. Life is never that; it's just what it is and we cope.

She copes.

I wish she had done so in about 50 fewer pages. It's a good read with much more going on than sex, and even the sexy bits are handled graciously. 60+ women with husbands will recognize the mechanics, but it all gets a little tiresome toward the end.

She gets what she wants, but what she wants isn't what she gets.

Ripping Great Adventure!

2007-12-20T21:59:00.000-06:00

Never, I repeat, NEVER, begin a Preston/Child book in the late evening on a work night.

Riptide by my favorite adventure author duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, swept me away. These guys are always edge-of-your-seat great, but this little gem kept me up late on a night I really needed to be in bed. I kept thinking I would come to a place where I could put a bookmark in it and return to it the next evening. Wrong!

From its sinister beginning to its eerie denouement and explosive climax, this account of the search for and salvage of a cursed treasure hoard holds the reader breathless. Such is the creaft of the authors, that they could take the telephone book and sell it for a movie.

The plot is predictable: Lonely island surrounded by fog on which a booby-trapped labyrinth of tunnels, pits, and sinkholes hides an immense pirate treasure which attracts the greed of an expert salvage team in possession of a secret code which will enable them to defeat the "curse" and become obscenely rich.

The characters are stock: Computer nerd, sexy foreign archealogist, angst-ridden hero, fanatically-crazed preacher, the girl who got away, rich treasure hunter who stops at nothing, slavish sidekick who does the dirty work.

But when Preston and Child toss all the ingredients together, the results are always fresh and evocative. The whole is much more than the sum of its parts.

I will never forget the sounds the island makes as the sea comes in--or the island itself--poor, doomed character that I know will die and take all with it (except of course, the hero who always survives). The island with its mantle of fog and its nether world that does not accept the rules of modern technology reminds me of the island in King Kong and takes me back to that simple morality tale where all of man's might fails when nature moves.

The difference is, Kong was subdued, the island is not.

Play It Again Bernie

2007-12-05T22:52:00.000-06:00

I love Lawrence Block. I don't know why. He's like a male Evanovich without the sexual angst, though he doesn't quite have her timing. Nonetheless he makes me laugh and that's a special thing in these somewhat somber days.

In The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, Block brings back his gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr to...do what? Solve a case? Fall in love? Commit larceny in a lovable way? Who cares? I don't read Block for the mystery or the romance or because I have any latent philosophical affinity for crime. I read him for the fun and he never disappoints.

In this parody of old mysteries, I finally stopped trying to keep up with the convoluted plot and just followed Bernie to the Bogart film festival he attends every night with his newest romance, Ilona, a mystery woman from Anatruria. He is hired to steal documents, his employer is murdered, the suspected murderer is murdered, Ilona disappears then reappears with a boyfriend who is the heir to the throne on Anatruria and in need of the documents Bernie was to steal. (I think.) There's a fat man and a midget and a punk bodyguard and Raffles the cat and, always in the background, the many characters Bogie played in his lifetime in film.

Forget the plot--Block weaves Bogart's dialogue in and out of the conversations, Bernie begins to become Bogie, and the fun is all in revisiting those wonderful old Bogart classics and reliving his characters in a savvy new way. The author obviously had fun writing the book and I appreciated the joy of reading it.

Mr. Block, I love your writing. "Here's lookin' at you, kid."

Thunderstruck, But Not Quite Electrified

2007-12-04T22:03:00.000-06:00

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson is not one of those grip-you-by-the-collar books that causes your kids to scream and kick your shins because you haven't fixed breakfast, lunch, or dinner and midnight looms, but it is a good read. Uncharacteristically, I spent four leisurely nights with Mr. Larson, enjoying the carefully crafted plot of this nonfiction tale.

As he did in The Devil in the White City, he tells two stories and moves them toward an intersection that creates a single unified whole. In Thunderstruck, Marconi is the inventor who can't seem to get his concept of wireless transmission off the ground (no pun intended, but I'll let the sentence stand.). Dr. Crippin is the kindly, well-liked physician who has murdered his domineering, abusive wife and run away with his typist.

Marconi's struggle to market wireless and Crippin's attempt to escape the law culminate in a surreal ocean voyage in which the Captain of Crippin's vessel is using his wireless to transmit information about the fugitives back to Scotland Yard and, via the newspapers of the day, to the world. As the Law races to catch the ship and board, the Captain is sending out daily tidbits that include conversations with the fugitives, their manner of dress, their reading material for the day, and other intimate details of the voyage. Worldwide, the public snapped up every morsel transmitted, and Wireless became the fad of the day. Marconi was saved even as Crippin was damned.

Larson is at the top of his craft in using information gathered from letters, transcripts, newpapers and other sources to create dialogue of such immediacy that the reader believes he has slipped into fiction. But his true master stroke comes in withholding details of the murder until after he has created a sympathetic picture of Crippin and his sweetheart. Therein lies the doubt. Crippin insisted he was innocent even as he went to the gallows. The readership of the day was uncertain, and Larson places us, today's readers, in their place.

Great read for cold nights by the fire.

Almost Borning

2007-11-13T17:37:00.001-06:00

I loved the her book "Lovely Bones". It was well written and kept you thinking. Her new book "Almost Moon" was slow moving and I found a little confusing. The saying "You can't judge a book by it's cover" should say "You can't judge a book by it's author". This is not the first time I bought a book just because of the author, I have done it a lot of times, but with this book I missed judged. I am not saying it is a bad book, just not her best.

The book is about a daughter whose mother has dementia/Alzheimer and does not remember her from one minute to the next. She goes over to her mom's and finally has had enough, there is no what to put it nicely, she puts her mom out of her misery. After that the book goes down hill I think; the author goes back and forth from the daughters childhood, to marriage, to the present.

I will still read what this author writes, I will just start taking my husband's advise and check them out instead of buying books all the time.

Oh, Harry!

2007-08-05T18:04:00.000-06:00

Well, friends and neighbors, she did it! She tied up all those loose ends in a neat little package, but not before adding even more subplots to make her job difficult. I'll not tell all because we still have several reserves on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but there are some observations that I can make that shouldn't give anything away.

It's long.....but, what else is new? The books have gotten progressively longer as the plot has become increasingly convoluted. Nonetheless, most readers are confirming to me that they enjoyed this last meander into J.K.Rowling's wonderful world and were reluctant to see the journey end. Some of the library kids have literally grown up with Harry and have a really emotional investment in his story.

She has to use the infamous deus ex machina to get herself off high center and pointed toward the end. There is a really long part of the book where our three favorite friends are wandering around trying to determine how to go about hunting a horcrux while the author is trying to figure out how to pull it all together and end the book. She finally just places one in their way and then everything takes off for the reader and, I think, for her.

She has set up a difficult conundrum that the best of us find difficult to resolve in our own lives. She has made Harry realize that if he kills, he becomes a killer. He fears that he will become You-Know-Who if he destroys him. Now how do you finish a book when the hero can't kill the villain? Her solution is beautiful.

She has grown as a writer as she has journeyed along with Harry. The final book has flaws, but we forgive them because we love the characters and we care about her. We have watched her struggle with her writing as she has spun out this wonderful tale, and we applaud her maturity in this last book of the series.

When the time came to lay Harry to rest, she did it gently and gracefully and we are grateful that her ending was appropriate and satisfactory, whether it was what we expected or not.

Here's to you, Ms. Rowling. Thanks for a wonderful trip, and may you live long and comfortably on your royalties.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

2007-06-27T09:44:00.000-06:00

This is an excellent second novel. I ran onto the Kite Runner and never bought it until I had exhausted all my other books and was going to spend the day at the hospital. I am so glad that I bought it because I would never have thought to read or even look forward to A Thousand Splendid Suns, which is a line from an Afghan poem.

This is an excellent second novel by a new author, Khaled Hosseini. It is full of emotion and the characters are as true to life an any breathing person. You are taken in just pages into the novel. You get to see a part of Afghanistan that is not torn apart by war and see that not all Afghans are what we see on the news. The two main characters in the book, Mariam and Laili become a part of you and you cry right along with them and for them.

I really loved this novel. I cried and laughed my way through the entire book, just as I did with the Kite Runner. I suggest you read them both.

Lean Mean Thirteen!

2007-06-22T17:26:00.000-06:00

It's in!

Late--I know. A certain library vendor is not getting another preorder on Evanovich. But at least it's finally here.

Will Joe triumph over Ranger? Will Ranger steal Steph? Will Stephanie make up her mind? I won't get to read it for weeks--it's that booked up, but I'll make a fearless prediction: Nothing will be resolved in this book, but it'll be rip-roarin' fun!. We have two copies in print and one on CD, so get in line and don't tell me anything until I've read it myself!

Stolen Child Steals The Heart

2007-06-15T15:36:00.000-06:00

After reading The Stolen Child, I had to find Keith Donohue's biography (no easy task) to find out how old he is. Surprise! He's just a kid! He's not even forty! I was startled to discover he was so much younger than I because, as a baby boomer born in '46, I listen for the voice of my generation, and Donohue has it--he's just too young to have lived it. Like a good novelist, he tricks us into belief.

The plot of The Stolen Child is simple, based on a W.B. Yeat's poem of the same name. A child of the '40's named Henry Day is stolen by hobgoblins and one of the captors takes his place. Henry and the changeling grow up, each telling his story in alternating chapters, crossing paths until one day they meet. There is humor and pathos, but primarily a thoughtful retelling of the changes that occur when a child is taken from his natural setting and is forced to begin a new life.

The beauty of the book, and the poignant sweetness, is that about mid-way this Baby Boomer (who had been blithely reliving her life through the events that swirl around Henry and the changeling) entered emotionally into the story. I, too, am a changeling, as are my many compatriots born in the late 40's. How many lives have we led, and how foreign do we feel in each of them? And, for me, how impossible is it to go home and be that solitary kid on the rock hill who dreamed away the long days?

Who were you before the divorce? And who are you now? Who will you be once you've married again? And can you ever drive past the house that held that other life and not feel the ghosts of another time watching you pass? How do you move on?

Donohue, kid that he is, leads his characters home and, in so doing, holds out to all of us--lost children that we are--a handful of hope.

Mother Sings Me To Sleep

2007-06-07T17:41:00.000-06:00

Yawn...

Mother by Linda Ann Rentschler absolutely put me to sleep--literally. The first night I tried to read a few chapters, I couldn't keep my eyes open and finally gave it up and went to bed. Let me tell you: that never happens to me. The book reads like a first year fiction writing class assignment--improbable plot with manipulated ending, a dull (slightly irritating) heroine, too much exposition and too little dialogue.

Mary Sullivan grieves to the point of reader nausea over the death of her mother and just happens to meet a young woman in a luncheonette on the day before the evening that Cathy (the young woman) loses her own mother in a tragic car accident. Cathy ends up on Mary's doorstep, looking for comfort. She gets the address from a policeman. Small town? Really small town?

The two women bond instantly and Mary leaves her husband and two sons plus myriad commitments to go to college with Cathy and take a course that will help her become acceptable to a professor psychic who will help both women contact their dead mothers. Are you with me here?

The best parts of the book emerge when the husband and two sons are onstage. They are perfectly drawn and provide humor and delightful dialogue. The scenes in which they star are funny, poignant, and right on target--so the gal can write. I just wish she had used a little of that creativity on the plot and main characters.

The ending has an unexpected twist but the foundations are laid too late in the book to make for a believable construction. Don't wait on the movie, folks. Wait for her to write two more books.

She's got talent, she might get better.

Heart-Shaped Box: A New King?

2007-05-22T16:48:00.000-06:00

Ok, let's just get it out on the table at the very beginning. Joe Hill is Stephen King's son and, like most little boys, he's trying on Daddy's shoes. Unlike most little boys, however, he finds himself with a really good fit. Aging rock star buys a ghost delivered in a heart-shaped box and promptly finds himself the vengeful spirit's target for death. With this no-punches-pulled beginning, the author spins out a suspensefully satisfying tale for his readers.

The Heart-Shaped Box has those classic King attributes: hard-core prose that goes poetic after the reader is hooked, improbable situation that just gets stranger as the pages turn, the buzzing of bees (where does that come from?), slightly ruined anti-hero that the reader can't give up on, wounds and bleeding and an unlikely heroine. It also introduces an author who not only dots his i's and crosses his t's but who also minds the swooping curls of his p's and q's.

Joe Hill is not a lazy writer who depends on deux ex machina for the salvation of his plot. Implausibe as the situation is, he carefully leads his reader to a logical ending, neatly tying up the frazzled ends even as he treats us to one final surprising twist. It's a good read.

For you young readers who have just discovered Stephen King and fret that he is in the twilight of his writing years, fear not. Another generation has taken up the pen and 'quits himself righteously.

The future is secure.

The Wheel of Time

2007-04-30T19:00:00.000-06:00

Is Rand the Dragon Reborn?
Why can't Matt survive without the ruby dagger?
What caused Perrin to become "Wolfbrother"?

Come join Robert Jordan and discover the answers in the Wheel of Time series.

The journey begins in book 1, "The Eye of the World" where we are introduced to these three young men of the Two Rivers. Become caught up as they are whisked away into adventure by Aes Sedai Moiraine and a Warder named Lan, along with the young woman Egwene and their village Wisdom, Nynaeve. As they are hunted by the Dark One's Myrddraal and Trollocs they discover they are each more than what they ever knew they were.

Jordan takes us to a world with as much power and intrigue as Tolkien's Middle Earth, with captivating characters we are drawn to love and hate and immerses us in a realm of magic beyond one's imagination.

Ysabel for Beltane

2007-04-30T12:01:00.000-06:00

If you aren't into Celtic myth and Beltane, don't let that deter you from reading this book. I am not normally a fan of fantasy and, had I known that this book would revolve around the love-that-transcends-the-ages theme, I would have missed a really good read because I would not then have chosen this title to review. Fortunately, the lead character, a 15 year old, i-pod-carrying, cell-phone-using, nice-guy boy named Ned got my undivided attention before it dawned on me that I was in for a fantasy.

Ned is on holiday with his hot-shot photographer dad in Aix-en-Provence, France and encounters a love-triangle that has played itself out life after life after life. The unexpected twist is that he can sense the auras of the gorgeous Ysabel (who has taken over the body of his dad's administrative assistant, Melanie) and her two lovers, the Celt and the Roman (who was really a Greek in their first life).

The plot is like the lovers, old-old-old and Saturday-matinee-silly, but the play is the thing. There is a double mystery to solve (How to get Melanie back, and why is Ned able to sense these 2,500 year-old lovers?) and all the characters are interesting. There are no real villians (except maybe the unfortunate and ineffectual Druid), only passionate people who love too deeply and too well. The violently tragic history of Aix-en-Provence, provides the theme that binds the characterization and plot. It is a barbarism vs. civilization game in which both the barbaric and the civilized are allowed their positive points and the realization that "You can't go home again," is poignantly underlined.

Great for adults looking for a romp of a read--acceptable for young adults--no sex, not much "adult" language (why do we call junior high curses "adult" language?), and recounting of historical violence rather than ripping off heads and swimming in gore.

Fantasy Fans--Gotta Have It!
Everyone Else: Give it a try.

The Priest Fainted

2007-04-23T14:17:00.000-06:00

No, and yes. No, This isn't a book about a priest. Yes, it is about breaking rules. From the Picasso-esque dust jacket to the rich retelling of Greek myth this book is not at all what it seems, and exactly what it seems. This is a woman's book, specifically a mother-daughter book, a journey of discovery and emancipation that leads the reader through hopeful (sometimes strained) retelling of masculine myth in feminine terms, sprinkled liberally with basil, garlic, olive oil, and tomato. And in the end, the heroine finds herself remade in feminine terms--her own person.

The plot is not linear. The characters are not stereotypical. The pace is leisurely. Not a quick read, but as fulfilling as a rich stew on a cold day, this book will have a very small , but devoted, circle of readers

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? Is it an MQ-1A Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with Hellfire C Laser-Guided Weapons

2007-04-16T20:40:00.000-06:00

Cold days and wet weather gave me a little indoor time and, ignoring the dust bunnies hopping in and out of the den, I settled in to finish Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston. What fun! This one is a definite for the shelves, and we will watch for his other books, but how do I classify it?

It's a mystery with the critical clue given in the prologue to the book and not revealed until the end, but the plot is straightforward. The bad guys are the bad guys and the good guys are exactly what they seem to be--good guys. No surprises. No unexpected twists. Just a thrilling good ride.

It is a thriller. Like a good Saturday matinee, it has cliff-hanger after cliff-hanger (Literally! The plot is set in the canyons of the desert southwest!), and one night in particular I found myself reading through the night and into the morning, looking for a place to put a bookmark. Nonetheless, I figured out early on that Preston wasn't going to kill off any of his good guys after the initial murder, and though the threats were real, my anticipation was in how they were going to survive rather than if they were going to survive.

It's an adventure. Dinosaur hunter, power-hungry scientist, CIA, top-secret G-men, fossils, Anasazi ruins--and all of it in my favorite northern New Mexican landscape--Delight! However, it's too much thriller to go on the adventure shelves...hm... there is that element of mystery...

It does have its flaws. There are times when I had to suspend incredulity for a time to get past the plot devices that seemed a little strained (When a special-ops group is so critical to world security that the leader can break all laws and has no rules, how can an ordinary army guy thwart the mission with impunity?), but the read was such a romp that I really didn't care.

Preston's characters are excellent; even the villains are fully-fleshed with their good traits. One particularly nice touch is the killer's surprise that perfectly legitimate activities make him more money with less effort than crime. The monk, Broadbent and Sally will appear later in other books by Preston. He leaves them teamed up and ready for the next adventure.

Me too!

Good Night, Mr. Vonnegut, Wherever You Are

2007-04-12T23:42:00.000-06:00

There was a disturbance in the ether sometime yesterday, though I did not feel it, did not know it had occured until about 7:05 am this morning when my radio alarm woke me to the news that Kurt Vonnegut had died. The literati of the world have lost a friend. And humanists, both secular and Christian, have lost their voice.

I picked up his last book, A Man Without A Country, in an airport on a trip to Seattle this January, though at the time, of course, I didn't know that it was his last book. I think he knew, though. It is his valediction, his letting go. In these pages, he no longer warns his readers that our ability to exist on this earth is contingent on our prudent use of natural resources. Like the street corner prophet we no longer believe, he tells us the end is near. He says, "And nobody can do a thing about it. It's too late in the game."

However, Vonnegut to the end, he does not leave us with a despairing final opus. He points us back to those things that make us human: altuism, mercy, the crafting of peace. Marveling at our determination to post the old testament words of Moses in public buildings, he asks why there is no outcry for the display of the Beatitudes of Christ. In this warlike time, meekness, mercy, and peace are out of fashion for most of us, but Vonnegut has never given up on these attributes that are the focus of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

I had thought I would place the book in the library when I finished it, but I found I could not part with it after all, and so I must point Vonnegut's following to the 800s section on the shelves, where his novels take their place with the works of his literary peers. Of the choices there, I recommend particularly Cat's Cradle. Not for the faint of heart, the book satirizes all elements of society, stripping civilization down to the cold hard bone--and reminding us that we find our true selves in the marrow of bone, not in the fragility of flesh.

Mr. Vonnegut, I know you do not believe in life after life, but I hope you have been pleasantly surprised. You always loved a good laugh.

It's a Conspiracy!

2007-04-09T13:35:00.000-06:00

Why is it when the house is full of winter dust and the yard is lost in leaves that all our favorite authors come out with new titles?

John Grisham's Innocent Man is HOT! Even though we have multiple copies, the list of reserves is long. I haven't gotten to read it yet, and that's only half the story. If I don't get my leaves raked and mulched, I may never get to read it! (And Hennessy Hank predicted an early spring--hah!)

I want to try the Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz. She sounds like a contender for Evanovich sisterhood, though who can equal Janet E? And, of course, I've got to read Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill just to see if he is following in his dad's footsteps. I'm wondering if there is another King maturing in Stephen's household.

In the meantime, I have The Priest Fainted languishing on my book table, balanced precariously on top of Tyrannosaur Canyon and a persistent little voice in the back of my brain that keeps insisting that I need to reread the Harry Potter series before we get Rowling's final chapter.

What's a reader to do?