Monday, Monday

 

I hope you are having weather like we are. Day after day of 68 degrees and sunny. I don't remember such a stretch before.

I saw two good movies FJORD and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. Jane Austen never lets you down although the Ang Lee on of the nineties was better. This has such a dark palette.  

Reading AETNA, about a bomb sniffing dog trying to get home after the war. I could not get through the Russo book-UNDER THE FALL. 

Still trying to improve my balance at PT but I am beginning to think it's hopeless.

TV-MAIGRET, SMALL PROPHETS, Finished SLOW HORSES, which was terrific. 

Kevin worked his butt off, got all As and is transferring to U of M in January. Wisconsin was fine, but his friends are at Michigan schools. Now he just has to decide on a major.  Plus being an instate student will save money.

What's new with you?  

Short Story Wednesday: Dr. H.A. Moynihan, Lucia Berlin

                                        Josh and Kevin 15 years ago

I was in a bookstore on the Upper West Side in Manhattan when a friend pulled A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMAN off the shelf. Many years later I have still not finished it but the stories are great. This one concerns a middle school student who is expelled and as punishment has to help her grandfather in his dental practice all summer. His abiding interest is in making false teeth so she helps him make a set for himself by pulling all his teeth after he passes out from the pain. Or passes out from the drink. She uses teabags to stop the bleeding. They are a perfect replica of his teeth. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

MOnday, MOnday

 Resting up after our long drive home from Madison. What are you up to? 

Short Story Wednesday: Chuck Murphy's Last Run. Kevin Barry (THE NEW YORKER)

 

This is such a gorgeously written story, it makes me want to read everything Barry has written.

Six elderly men are on the Harleys taking the ashes of a friend to the place he wanted to be scattered. Barry gives us great detail about the day, the road, the lunch they have, their ailments, their brief encounter with surfers at the spot. When one man suggests selling his bike, no one wants to hear it. Loved it.  

 Jerry House

George Kelley 

Steve Lewis 

Monday, Monday

                                             

                                                    Tell me what you are up to?

Monday, Monday

 I saw both PRIMETIME and THE SOCIAL RECKONING this week. Both were hard to watch but in different ways. Robert Pattinson is certainly a fine actor as he also was in THE DRAMA and THE ODYSSEY. But predators are a hard watch. As is Zuckerberg. After watching it I rewatched THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, a far better film. 

Enjoying EAST OF EDEN, PROFESSOR T, SLOW HORSES, TED LASSO.

Finished KIN which was a good novel and am now reading UNDER THE FALLS, Richard Russo. Both for my book groups. 

Friday, we are going to Madison to see Kevin so no forgotten book for me but I will post on Monday.

What are you up to? 

FFB: THE BLADE ITSELF, Marcus Sakey

 

From Kevin Tipple

 

 “The Blade Itself: A Novel” by Marcus Sakey

This is a case where the basic premise has been done to death. Two young men living a life of crime when one is caught and serves jail time. He comes back home and expects things to resume where they left off. The other has been scared straight, as it were, and isn't interested in going back. Such is the case here. Yet, the execution of the story is how it works for the reader.

The years have passed and Danny has tried to forget the past which is never far away. Once Danny, Evan and Patrick among others were part of a gang of young toughs who considered themselves invincible. With instincts honed by working the streets, they moved from score to score taking what they wanted and not worrying about the consequences. Danny usually worked with Evan as he did that fateful night.

That one night cost Danny in ways he won't talk about and cost Evan a long term sentence in Statesville maximum security. While Danny still hangs around Patrick, Danny has become what they referred to as a "civilian." He has changed his ways and isn't about to go back and risk losing it all including the love of his life, Karen. Then, Evan returns and is looking for pay back and gratitude for Evans not talking to the cops. Danny's house of cards perfect life begins to teeter and Evan plans to bring it all down.

In what is billed as a debut novel and certainly does not read like one, author Marcus Sakey skillfully weaves a complex tale. A tale that is on first glance, stereotypical in the idea of the con coming back home and looking to be rewarded. And yet through back story, flashbacks, etc. The novel quickly becomes much more. Evan is portrayed as evil initially and yet overtime is seen to have an element, not exactly of goodness, but of something more positive. Danny, a flawed hero, is carried forward not only by the love of a good woman but by memories of what he caused as well as the life his father led.

If has become clichéd to believe and live up to the standards that our parents raised us to. That is exactly what happens in this novel. Forces set into motion in childhood rippled forward through their lives and ended in a violent climax in a Chicago construction yard. The past is never really past and everything influences our actions each and every day.

The result is a complex read that touches on social issues while at the same time providing a heck of a good tale, at a fast pace with deep characters. This is a good stuff and well worth your time.

The Blade Itself: A Novel
Marcus Sakey
St. Martin's Minotaur
ISBN #0-312-36031-2
Hardback
307 Pages

Short Story Wednesday

 From Ron Scheer's blog; Buddies in the Saddle

 

 

Robert J. Randisi, ed., Livin’ on Jacks and Queens

This is an entertaining anthology of 14 stories about gamblers and gambling in the Old West. Editor Randisi has assembled a notable gathering of western writers, providing an array of storytelling styles and imaginative treatments of the subject. The names of several contributors will be quickly recognized: Johnny Boggs, John D. Nesbitt, Matthew P. Mayo, Nik Morton, and Chuck Tyrell.

To these he has added a story of his own, plus the yarns of two women writers who may be new to some readers: Christine Matthews and Lori Van Pelt.

My favorites of the bunch include Ms. Matthews’ “Odds on a Lawman,” which tells of a succession of sheriffs who each assumes a tenure of service to a frontier town, before dying or disappearing for various reasons, on which the townsmen place bets until the turn of events claims one of them the winner. It’s an amusing and well-written tale that brings its Dickensian cast of characters to entertaining life, while we wait to see the fate that befalls each of the town’s series of sheriffs.

For a colorful portrayal of the daily life and business of a riverboat gambler, Nik Morton brings that world vividly to life in his story, “Hazard.” In “Acey-Deucey,” John D. Nesbitt’s central character is hired by a woman to retrieve an emerald pendant once given to her by a paramour. Finally locating the current owner of the gem, he has to win a game of cards before he can take possession of it.

Robert Randisi

Randisi’s story, “Horseshoes and Pistols” is so quirky, I kept thinking that it qualified as Twilight Zone material. In it, two men are forced to bet their lives on a game of horseshoes. Matthew Mayo’s “Pay the Ferryman” veers off in another direction, as a man on the run escapes into what might well be called “the heart of darkness.”

My favorite story in the collection was penned by a favorite storyteller, Chuck Tyrell. His “Great Missouri River Steamship Race” evokes a period of river travel from the point of view of a youngster working as a fireman aboard a steamship with a regular route between St. Louis and Fort Benton. Tyrell brings his gifts for characterization, dialogue, and suspense to this story with its echoes of Huckleberry Finn.

George Kelley

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 So really nice weather but also some rain. Saw a local production of the GOD OF CARNAGE which I saw on Broadway a million years ago with James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and sadly I forget the other actress. Also  saw THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER, which was too long for me. 

Watching EAST OF EDEN, LANTERNS, SLOW HORSES and KNIFE EDGE: CHASING A MICHELIN STAR.

Reading SWITZI by Emma Kline 

What about you?  

 

FFB VANISHED, Mary Mcgarry Morris

 I read many books by this writer. And then I lost sight of her. This one won the National Book Award in the late eighties. Her books are dark and border on thrillers.

This description is from Amazon. I would like to remember books I read forty years ago but I only remember liking it. 

Aubrey Wallace is the kind of man no one notices. Dotty Johnson is the kind of woman no one can ignore. One afternoon, they both disappear from the small Vermont town where they live. The next day, two hundred miles away, a toddler is kidnapped from her Massachusetts home.
 
For the next five years, Aubrey, Dotty, and the kidnapped child—united by a mix of strange love, desperate need, and the crime that brought them together—are trapped in a nomadic existence governed by their constant fear of discovery. Canny, the little girl, becomes Aubrey's entire existence. But Dotty wants out. She is tired of being saddled with this fearful man, and when she meets a brutal ex-convict, the wheels of Canny's return to her natural parents are wrenched fatally into motion.