Monday, Monday

 

Have you read ON THE ROAD? I never made it through although both Phil and Megan were fans and I remember going to an exhibition of artifacts at the NYPL on 42nd Street a few years back. The movie was good enough but all of the info was widely known facts.

Also saw SKETCH, which turned out to be a kids' movie. 

Watching THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT on Britbox, PLATONIC (Apple) and THE GILDED AGE.  Still reading ABSOLUTION. So wickedly hot here. 

We had a water main break here and I have to boil water for another day. Wonder if that is heat-related.  

What about you?  

FFB-A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE, Reynolds Price

 

Published in the sixties, I read this book in 1988. It was Price's first novel, published in the sixties, and immediately launched a fine career. 

From the LA TIMES:

 Reynolds Price’s first novel, “A Long and Happy Life,” originally published in 1962, recounted--or, better, evoked--the back-country courtship of the young Rosacoke Mustian and Wesley Beavers. Beginning with “Wesley’s impulsive and short-lived abandonment of Rosa at her friend’s funeral, encompassing their awkward sexual initiation, the novel culminated with Wesley’s decision to do the right thing by the girl he’d made pregnant. A quarter century later, it remains a nearly perfect novella. Every page declares the open senses and curious heart of an enormously gifted young writer.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Necklace" V. S. Prichett

 

The New Yorker, February 15, 1958 P. 31

A window-cleaner finds a pearl necklace and turns it over to the police. He recalls his actions on the day that it was found, and also how he met his wife, Nell. He remembers her incessant reference to her well-to-do- Aunt Mary throughout their courtship. Later she admitted that Aunt Mary died the previous year. Also apparent is Nell's hatred of liars, of which she constantly reminds her husband. After questioning each one separately, the police bring them together. Nell claims that the necklace was hers, and not found by her husband. Further investigation revealed that she had stolen jewelry previously, and credited her Aunt Mary, who never really existed, with having given it to her. Nell was sentenced to three months in prison.

Quite an odd little story. DeMaupassant's story THE NECKLACE is an influence. The story is read by Paul Theroux on THE NEW YORKER website. 

 George Kelley

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

A quick one as I am getting home late from seeing a  play RADICAL EMPATHY. As you can imagine it was not a comedy. Also saw the movie FOLK TALES about a school in Norway that tries to get teens to get off their phones and out of their heads and learn some skills, like dog-sledding. 

Reading ABSOLUTION by Alice McDermott. Also THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE (Van Der Kolk)

Watching THE GILDED AGE (HBO), CODE OF SILENCE (Britbox) and various other things. 

A very nice three days here. Hope you are enjoying your weather too.  

THE LIFEBOAT, Charlotte Rogan

 

Charlotte Rogan published her first novel post age 50 in 2012, which gives aspiring novelists a lift. And quite a novel it is. Set in 1914, as World War 1 is beginning, a ship, Empress Alexandra, goes down. Our narrator, a woman of 22, is one of the forty people that manage to get themselves on one of the lifeboats. Her recent husband does not.

We know from the start she is on trial for murder along with two other women. They are accused of pushing the man who has commandeered the lifeboat overboard. The book examines what occurred on the lifeboat, which although said to be fit for forty is vastly overfilled. The weeks spent on the boat are full of degradation, hardship, starvation, madness.

There is an enigmatic quality to our narrator. How did she manage to wrestle her husband away from the woman he was engaged to? How did she manage to get a spot on the boat? How did she come away from the trial with a new husband in tow? Is she the naive woman she appears to be, taking her cues from more experienced travelers? Or is she more savy than her companions, push come to shove.

It will be up to you as the reader to judge her. Perhaps your judgement will be harsher than her jury's. Or perhaps more lenient than her fellow travelers. This is a deep and troubling book you will not soon forget. We learn very little about the men on this boat, but a lot about the woman.
This is fitting, I think. Highly recommended.

Short Story Wednesday "The Heroine" Patricia Highsmith from TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES, Sarah Weinman editor

 

Lucille is hired by a family in Westchester to care for their two children. Almost immediately you sense this will not turn out well and the tension never lets up. She is not ill-intentioned but she is crazy. She longs to do something heroic for this family. What will it be. And a strange life the family has-with the children rarely leaving their nursery. A good reminder to always check out references. 

I have read most of the stories in this anthology and have not been disappointed. 

Putting together this anthology was one of Sarah Weinman's first endeavors. Now the mystery and  crime editor of the New York Times Book Review, Sarah has written SCOUNDREL, THE REAL LOLITA, UNSPEAKABLE ACTS, EVIDENCE OF THINGS SEEN and has a new book WITHOUT CONSENT debuting in the fall. All non-fiction, her books look at true crime.

 George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK 

Monday, Monday

 SORRY, BABY was at only one theater in the Detroit are. It was a good movie about our ability to overcome a "very bad thing" and get on with our lives. THis despite the fact she got no backup on her assault from the police or university. Worth thinking about.

Reading RAISING HARE, by Chloe Dalton. I knew nothing about hares before reading this and it is fascinating. Also reading ABSOLUTION BY Alice McDermott.

Watching PRIME TARGET on Apple. Finished POKER FACE. The second season had some real winning episodes. Could not finish DYING FOR SEX on Hulu.  Still watching the series on the Mitford sisters. What a handful they were. 

What about you?  

 

FFB-INDIAN COUNTRY-Philip Caputo

 

Although A RUMOR OF WAR (a memoir) was Caputo's big book, this one was also great. I read it in 1987 and its Michigan settings probably attracted me. Also the narrator's relationship with an Ojibwa Indian, another earlier interest of mine. This also has a strong Vietnam connection and I took a course on Vietnam around this time so it was possibly assigned. It follows the character through the war and in the decades after. Did anyone really escape the horrors of that war when our mission was so murky? Caputo has written many books since but these were the only two I read. I wonder if he's escape the influence by now. Reading their synopses, they do sound grim. 

Short Story Wednesday: "Face- Time" Lorrie Moore from THE NEW YORKER, Sept. 2020

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/face-time

 

You can tell by the date above, what was going on then. And this story, well-written and sad can stand in for a million stories like it. The protagonist's father is in the hospital. A surgery is followed by Covid. His daughters can only visit on Face- time as was so much the case then. It is hard to read this and be taken back to that hopeless time when we didn't know how long a vaccine might be in coming. But it wasn't that long because we believed in science and labs and the scientists working in them. And now we don't. Or at least our government doesn't.  

Todd Mason 

Neer 

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Monday, Monday

 I didn't expect to like THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME but I sort of did. I think it was because of Michael Cera's casting. I watched it as a series of skits rather than a whole, which was less frustrating. Going to see DON'T LETS GO DOWN TO THE DOGS TONIGHT today. I read it a long time ago. (Great movie-about a family caught up in the end of white Rhodesia). 

Liked the BLACK MIRROR episode with Paul Giamatti. Still watching the series on the Mitfords (OUTRAGEOUS) on BRIT BOX. Always difficult to find much sympathy for the rich and this one makes it even harder as they fawn over Adolph Hitler. Still reading MINA'S MATCHBOX, which is so unusual. Although it goes well with the Anderson movie. Also reading essays by Lorrie Moore. THE WSJ picked their favorite crime books from the 2000s. Megan's THE TURNOUT was on there. I thought it was a very good list but anyone craving action probably won't. 

The weather is strange or maybe it's the Canadian fires but it's dark a lot. 

I wake up full of dread anyway and that sure doesn't help.  

What about your world?  

FFB THE SOUTHPAW, Donal Hamilton Haines

 (From the distant past)

Kent Morgan writes (or wrote) a sports column for a paper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but spends most of his time puzzling over what to do with all the books piled on his furniture and floor and stored in his garage. More bookcases are not the answer as he has no room for them.

The Southpaw - Donal Hamilton Haines

I came across a copy of this juvenile novel at a recent charity book sale and quickly grabbed it for my baseball fiction collection. I didn't remember much about the story, but knew I had owned and read it in my youth. First published by Rinehart in 1931, Comet Books started reprinting it in 1949 and that's the edition I found. The book includes illustrations by Harold Minton and several panels on the back cover along with brief text provided the potential reader with an idea about the storyline.

"All Hillton Academy hated baseball, and every other sport except for hazing freshmen. For games bored Greg Elliott, a senior who had the whole school under his thumb. Then Bob Griswold arrived, like a one-man revolution. Bob loved baseball and refused to be bossed. That got him into a knock-down fight with Butch, Elliott's bully. And into much worse trouble with Elliott himself. Finally this undercover battle for leadership blazed into a revolt that shook Hillton Academy to its foundation."

The Southpaw with a cover price of .35 was #16 in a series of 20 mystery, sports, career and adventure tales published by Comet. Among the titles are The Green Turtle Mystery by Ellery Queen Jr., The Spanish Cave by Geoffrey Household and Sue Barton, Student Nurse by Helen Dore Boylston. The series also includes two other baseball books, Batter Up by Jackson Scholz and Bat Boy of the Giants by Garth Garreau, that I also read in my youth. My copies could be hiding from me in boxes in my garage.

Short Story Wednesday, "Premium Harmony" Stephen King

 from THE NEW YORKER.

 A couple, who fight over meaningless things, (his smoking, her weight) stop at a roadside store to pick up a ball for her niece. The husband and their dog wait in the car. It's a very hot day and after too long of a wait for her small errand, a woman comes out to tell him his wife has collapsed. He goes inside and waits until EMS arrives and confirms her death. She is only 35. He returns to the car where the dog has also died from the heat. I am not sure I would identify this as a King story if not for the references to Castle Rock. It was written in 2009. 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

Todd Mason 

Monday, Monday

 

BLUE, SUN PALACE, showing at the Detroit Film Theater was very slow but interesting. A first film, set in Queens, Baltimore and somewhere in Asia.

I seem to be surrounded by Asian fare lately. Also rewatched IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, which is such a gorgeous film. And reading MINA'S MATCHBOXES by Yoko Ogawa who also wrote THE MEMORY POLICE and THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR. 

Enjoying BALLARD (Prime), MURDERBOT (Apple). Not sure about the Lena Dunham show (Netflix), which has a hard-to-remember title Also liked PERNILLE (Netflix)

My hearing problem turned out to be wax, which Urgent Care removed,somewhat painfully. I can certainly hear much better. 

Weather been hot. I hate when I am tired of summer by mid-July because winter is so dreadful.

How about you?  

FFB: THE GREAT SANTINI, Pat Conroy

 

 

 

 You've probably seen the movie with Robert Duvall, but the book is terrific too. Conroy is a great writer and I've read most of his books THE PRINCE OF TIDES may be my favorite but this has the most memorable character in his work. This is a semi-autobiographical story of an ex-marine who runs his family like it's boot camp.Especially affected is Ben who fears, hates, and is anxious to feel his father's love and respect. "THE GREAT SANTINI HAS SPOKEN" is Bull's catch phrase and I can still picture Robert Duvall shouting that.  

Short Story Wednesday: "Something is Out There" Richard Bausch

 

Originally in MURDERLAND, this ended up the title story in his collection. 

A family returns home from the hospital where the father is spending some time after falling off the roof after being shot. They are having a rare snowstorm, and the boys begin to shovel the driveway and walk. The women try to piece together what has happened. The man who shot the father has been captured and was a former business partner. They are also waiting for the return of another family member away at college. They are worried about him out on the icy roads.

The dread in this story is palpable: the storm, the fate of the college student, knocks on the door, is the father involved in some crime? And then the power goes out. 

Bausch takes his time to make you feel what they are feeling. In fact, when a knock came at my own door (something very rare nowadays) I almost fell out of the chair. (It was the mailman). 

Bausch understands that the threat of violence can be more frightening than actual violence. He gives you enough information to understand, sort of, what might be going on. The story ends with the woman, standing at an upstairs window, with a loaded gun. The kids wait downstairs baseball bats and knives at the ready. The other woman waits too.

 Superb. There are probably pdf's online if you care to read it

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Steve Lewis 

Kevin Tipple 

Todd Mason 

Monday, Monday

Going out tonight (Sunday) to celebrate Kevin's passing the IB (International Baccalaureate)  exams. These are the equivalent in his school of AP exams.  Yay, Kevin!

Enjoyed FILM GEEK (Max) which so encapsulates the years when my kids were growing up in terms of movies.  Finished THE BEAR, which never quite recaptured the magic of the first two years but still is better than most anything else right now.  POKER FACE is fine but they are too wedded to their concept. Much like COLUMBO, I guess. 

Very much enjoying THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE-which is a fantasy-romance novel. Or maybe add historical fiction too. Beautiful writing. 

Went down to Michigan Central (Detroit's one-time train station) again-this time on a tour. Ford has made a gorgeous building out of what was a complete wreck a few years ago. Now they charge $20 a head for the tour so they will probably come out ahead over time because they have many tours every day.  Unlike Grand Central, Union Station and Penn Station no trains will ever come through it again. There are trains that head to Chicago but not via this route. 

Heard a rumor that both Detroit newpapers are soon going to online only. Yikes! 

How about you? 

FFB: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, Ron Kovics

 

BORN details Kovic's experiences as a soldier in two tours of duty in Vietnam, his involvement in war atrocities, his injuries, his paralysis, his treatment at various VA facilities and his road to activism. A very hard book to read and it was a terrific movie with Tom Cruise. 

Will this be the last fourth where the country we have forged is considered a democracy?  

Short Story Wednesday: "Button, Button" Richard Matheson

"Button, Button", Richard Matheson 

A package arrives at Norma and Arthur Steward's house with a gadget inside with a button on it. Shortly after a man arrives and announces to the couple that if they push the button they will kill someone in the world, and receive $50, 000 in exchange. Norma is intrigued by this, insisting that they are part of an experiment, and nothing will happen if they push the button. Except maybe they would get paid and could do the many things she was longing for. Arthur is repulsed by the idea and by his wife. This is a very well -written story although you will probably guess the ending. This was, of course, on the Twilight Zone. You can watch it on you tube. It was also the plot of the 2009 movie THE BOX.

Steve Lewis 

George Kelley 

Martin Edwards 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

Monday, Monday

 

Off to see BAD SHABBOS. A comedy is what we need. Luckily the theater near me is still trying to have some alternative films. Because everything else is for kids or action movies. 

I broke down and ordered Peacock. Decided I wanted to see POKER FACE enough to be worth it. A few other shows too. 

The first three episodes of THE BEAR were not so hot but I liked 4 although I am betting most viewers don't.

Still wading through THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE. I am just not a fantasy reader to my detriment, I am sure. It's popular with many readers, I understand. 

What do people who live in Manhattan do for the fourth of July. I mean Central Park is huge but can you barbecue there?  Although it's been a long time since I had anything barbecued. 

What's up with you guys?  

 

Good Turnout for Megan-maybe 75.

Mama to the rescue although I don't like doing it. She can't do it herself because she's in the green room. I had to correct the date on their website, make them order more books, make them get enough chairs and prepare an introduction for a clerk to read who was about to say. "Here is Megan Abbott". She was impressed enough with what she read, she bought a book.Of course I can only step in when she is in Detroit. But Indy book stores do a much better job of it because they know their customers and do it all the time. Barnes and Noble has been very good to Megan though. They did a great interview online. This store doesn't do many live events. But there were as nice as could be to the panicked Mom. Even when we tried to steal chairs from the coffee bar. 

My Choices

 

THE 100 BEST MOVIES OF THE 21st CENTURY

Reader’s Choice: My Ballot

Perfect Days

2023

Tár

2022

The Great Beauty

2013

Before Sunset

2004

The Lives of Others

2006

No Country for Old Men

2007

Moonlight

2016

45 Years

2015

Calvary

2014

Phantom Thread

2017

FFB: THE DAMNED, Andrew Pyper

 

THE DAMNED, Andrew Pyper

I was attracted to this book in my search for a ghost story and because it is mostly set in the suburb next to mine: Royal Oak. MI. Although there is technically a ghost in it I would classify it as a horror story more than a ghost story.

In order for the story to work, you must embrace the idea of a child born bad. I was never quite able to do this so that somewhat impeded my enjoyment of the book.

Twins are born to a family. From the beginning the girl is trouble although just how is never much discussed until the ending. Both almost die at birth and are brought back. At age sixteen, both die again in a fire and this time only the boy is saved. He has always been haunted by his sister in life and now in death, things don't change much. His ability to have a normal life is stopped at every turn.

This was a very well-written book and the setting was interesting to me. Pyper made good use of both Royal Oak and Detroit. But his sister never came to life for me-either alive or dead. There were lots of good plot twists in it, lots of great detail. But I guess I needed someone who didn't slip though my fingers every time I tried to understand her. Her name was Ash and that about sums up her presence

Short Story Wednesday: "The Pilgrimage" William Maxwell

 

William Keepers Maxwell Jr. (August 16, 1908 – July 31, 2000) was an American editor, novelist, short story writer, essayist, children's author, and memoirist. He served as a fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1975. An editor devoted to his writers, Maxwell became a legendary mentor and confidant to many of the most prominent authors of his day. Although best known as an editor, Maxwell was a highly respected and award-winning novelist and short story writer. His stature as a celebrated author has grown in the years following his death. 

"The Pilgrimage" almost certainly is a story based on something experienced or something heard by Maxwell. It gets so much right about tired tourists on the road. The Ormsby's are an American couple touring France. On the way to Paris, they make a detour to find a restaurant that friends have told them about, saying "it was the best dinner they had in their life" How can the couple not have dinner at a place that specialized in truffles and also " deserts made from little balls of various ice cream in a beautiful basket of spun sugar with a spun-sugar bow." 

They drive through village after village and finally come on a place that seems right except the menu has neither of the dishes they are seeking. And neither does another place on the town square. They are completely obsessed with having the things they were told about and act in the way Americans are always accused of acting. 

This is a satirical story, of course, meant to point out the problems with tourists in foreign settings. Maxwell is a master of this sort of story. And I can't say enough about the quality of his novels, especially TIME WILL DARKEN IT, THE FOLDED LEAF and THE CHATEAU.

 TracyK

George Kelley 

Casual Debris 

Todd Mason 

Monday, Monday

 Megan begins her book tour today. She gets in Detroit on Friday but just for a day. Hoping we get a decent turnout for her. 

Saw two movies this week. THE LIFE OF CHUCK, which I didn't think much of and it hit a little too close to home for comfort.The other was a restoration of THE ANNIHILATION OF FISH with James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave. The sound was poor and we struggled to hear it. But it seemed like a nice enough film about old age. 

Ate out way too much this week: Mexican, Turkish, Thai, Thai. I don't dare stand on the scale. 

Reading THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE for a book group. It is very thick. It certainly seems like people like it so maybe I will too.  

Watching DUSTER (Max) STICK (Apple) and OUTRAGEOUS (BritBox) but nothing that really thrills me. I find myself watching compilations of various themes on You tube a lot. FOr instance, the best dancing sequences, the best crime stories. They are inserting anti-abortion commercials in some of them.  

Very hot here. Hope it doesn't last long. 

What are you doing lately?  

FFB: A JUDGMENT IN STONE, RUTH RENDELL

 

I think I have probably read all of Rendell and seldom been let down. And that is quite a lot of books. This may be her best (imho). 

"Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write." That is the first line and the boiling center of this thoroughly frightening novel. Eunice and her religion fanatic friend, Joan, spur each other on and almost all of it stems from Eunice"s illiteracy. How even the sight of books terrifies her and fills her with hate. It's hard to imagine someone could finish even a few years of school without getting found out, but you still hear such stories from time to time. The cleverness of fooling people speaks to a certain kind of intelligence. So illiteracy must be partly something else. 

Short Story Wednesday 2 Wednesday's Child, Yiyun Li

 Incorporating her own story about the death of her two sons, this story is about a mother who loses her only child when the fifteen year old lies down on a train track. Traveling in the Netherlands, she recalls her mother's cruelty to her after that death and how her failure to form a relationship with her mother may have contributed to her daughter's death. 

Li has a new book out about her double death. It was reviewed last week in the NYT Book Review.  This collection was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Short Story Wednesday

Lots of your favorite mystery writers on tee shirts at TEEPUBLIC. 

This is mine.  

I will collect your links.  

Monday, Monday

 

 The movie was not without interest, but the central character just couldn't hold my attention. And Pedro Pascal seemed much less interesting than on The Last of Us. Chris Evans was the best thing about it.

On TV, I watched the original The Four Seasons, and I remembered it as better although I admired the ordinariness of its cast. 

Finished Mornings Without Mii, that last third about the cat's death was tough. Reading Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy-terrific writing although the whole book is about the earth dying. Getting a theme here? 

Jane Harper's The Survivors on Netflix is good enough over 6 episodes, but it sure seems like no one ever comes out of the water in Tasmania. 

Boy, I sure sound surly this morning. And the topper: 

We had a murder-suicide in our building but it's never been in the newspaper. I guess what's the point of a story like that when no court case will come out of it. Still..He lived next door to me when I first moved in and he was always slamming doors and shouting so it's not surprising. 

What about you?  

FFB: LABRAVA, Elmore Leonard

 

Although LaBrava certainly plays a major part in this Florida-based mystery, the story belongs to Jean, a former Hollywood B actress who LaBrava falls for. Some shady types are giving her a hard time and Jean and LaBrava and the third member of their triumvirate, Maurice, outsmart them. The crackling dialog never crackled better. This is one of his few books (OUT OF SIGHT, UP IN HONEY'S ROOM) where a woman so dominated the action. Leonard certainly gets pleasure out of describing Jean. I don't know if this is my favorite Leonard (maybe Freaky Deaky or Get Shorty) but it's a fine one.