Writing Advice: John Dufresne

Saturday Night Music: Moondance, Van Morrison

VOICE-OVERS

I generally dislike voice-overs but sometimes they work. I liked William Holden's voice-over in SUNSET BOULEVARD. What one works for you? THE WONDER YEARS used the voice of the adult Kevin (Daniel Stern) well too.

See my review of THE IMMIGRANT on CRIMESPREE MAGAZINE

How About a Dance Scene: PICNIC

Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, June 6, 2014

Next week, Evan Lewis will be collecting the links.

Jo Walton, Farthing (2006)

                  Ha'penny (2007)

                  Half a Crown (2008)

Reviewed by Jeff Meyerson

As a mystery fan who has read all of Christie and Sayers and much of Marsh and Allingham, as well as a long-time fan of alternate history books, there was little doubt I would read Jo Walton's trilogy set in an "alternate" post-World War II Britain where Churchill was out and peace was made with Hitler in 1941 and the Americans never entered the war.

The three books have the same format.  Each is told in alternating chapters, with the odd numbered chapters narrated by a young woman and the even numbered chapters told in third person from the point of view of Insp. Peter Carmichael of Scotland Yard.

The first book, Farthing, takes place at the titular country house, where the right wing "Farthing set" (based on the real-life Cliveden set) (WARNING: PLOT REVEALED) murder a prominent politician and frame a Jew to seize power and make one of their own Prime Minister.  (END WARNING) The narrator is Lucy Kahn, daughter of the house, who is married to the Jewish scapegoat.  Carmichael is not buying the obvious frame but his own personal life puts him in the position of having to go along with his superior's orders.

The second book, Ha'penny, set like it's predecessor in 1949, moves to a fascinating theater background.  Viola Lark (nee Larkin), third daughter of six in a prominent family (call them the Mitfords) who has one sister married to Himmler, another a Communist, and a third a duchess, is set to star in a partial reverse-sex version of Hamlet (which, I must admit, sounds like a show I would have loved to see!) when her sister and uncle tries to draw her into the plot to blow up the new fascist Prime Minister and a visiting Adolf Hitler.  Once again Insp. Carmichael is on the case.  I think this was my favorite of the three.

Lastly, in 1960 Carmichael is now the head of The Watch, meant to be Britain's Gestapo, though he is secretly helping Jews escape the country.  His ward is about to "come out" as a deb at the same time the government is planning to crack down even more and consolidate their power. 

I liked this series a lot.  I discovered Walton, a fantasy and science fiction writer, through her What Makes This Book So Great (about her sf/fantasy reading) and I'm glad I did.  Highly recommended.

REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, Carson McCullers

Reviewed by Patti Abbott

I have read three of McCullers novels but none prepared me for the oddity and loveliness of this one. More a novella than a novel, it takes place on an army base that functions as a hothouse for cramped and unmet desires amongst a group of six. This handful of characters is suffering in various ways yet continue to play cards, drink, dine, ride horses. None of their motives are entirely apparent, but by the end disaster has overtaken most of them. This is truly a noir book. McCullers wrote it after her first book THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER became a best seller, and the reaction was somewhat critical. It is very modern in its topics for the time. Highly recommended.

Yvette Banek, ASSIGNMENT IN BRITTANY, Helen MacInnes
Joe Barone, MISS. PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHiLDREN, Randsom Riggs
Brian Busby, SIN FOR YOUR SUPPER, Milton Douglas
Bill Crider, KING OF THE BS: WORKING WITH THE HOLLYWOOD SYSTEM, ed Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn
Curt Evans, MY SON, THE MURDERER, Patrick Quentin
Ed Gorman, THE CRIME LOVER'S CASEBOOK, Jerome Charyn
Rock Horton, THE KING'S JACKAL, William Harding Davis
Jerry House, REBEL: CITY OF INDRA, Kendell and Kylie Jenner
Randy Johnson. 42 DAYS FOR MURDER, Roger Torrey
George Kelle, PIETR, THE LATVIAN, Georges Simenon
Margot Kinberg,THE CHINESE MAZE MURDERS, Robert Van Gulik
Rob Kitchin, BEHIND THE NIGHT BAZAAR, Angela Savage
Kate Laity, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
B.V. Lawson, GIDEON'S FIRE, John Creasey
Evan Lewis, ADVENTURE HEROES, Jeff Rover
Steve Lewis, Marvin Lachman, ABOUT THE MURDER OF A MAN AND WOMAN, Anthony    Abbot
Todd Mason, STEVEN SCHEUER REDUX
Neer, CROME YELLOW, Aldous Huxley
J.F.Norris, PILGRIM'S REST, Patricia Wentworth
James Reasoner, SIN-A-RAMA.Brittany, Delany, et al
Ron Scheer, THE LAW OF RANDADO, Elmore Leonard
Kevin Tipple/Patrick Ohl, THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X, Keigo Higashino
Prashant Trikannad, CARVED IN SAND, Erle Stanley Gardner

Final Scene Season Seven MAD MEN

Theme Song: 77 SUNSET STRIP

Had to Post This One

But now I will stop...maybe.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/06/m

egan_abbott_s_the_fever_reviewed.html

Book Review: UPDIKE by Adam Begley

Still not quite finished this, but I have had such a good time reading this massive biography, I saw no need to rush through. It was more fun to remember when I read Updike's books, to remember the stories about the Maples, the stories about Rabbit, the story about the witches and all of the Updike trivia I ingested over the years.

If there's a writer, I identified with early on and for many years it was Updike. I must confess somewhere along the way he stopped speaking to me, as did a number of other writers I liked in my 20s and 30s but I always found him fascinating.

Adam Begley's book is  successful to me because it it shows you where the plots came from without pushing it too hard. It manages to be both sympathetic and critical of him for various decisions and behavior over the years. He doesn't seem particularly likable and yet there was no malevolence in him. I doubt anyone who didn't like Updike's books would find this book interesting. But if you're a fan or even an off and on fan, you will enjoy this. Not quite up to the standard of Scott Berg's biography of Maxwell Perkins, but some lives are more interesting than others. Like his friend and peer, Joyce Carol Oates, his life was exclusively about the writing. I know people like that.

What's your favorite writer biography?

For more book reviews, visit Barrie Summy. After a hiatus, book reviews will begin again in the Fall. 

Tuesday Night Music: Hey Ya OUTKAST

Forgotten Movies: THE ROSE TATTOO

I had been meaning to see this film for years and Friday night seemed as good a time as any. I had very mixed feelings about it. Of course, Magnani is magnificent. Her performance manages to be both natural, fiery, and poignant all at the same time. Some of the scenes work so well. But with the introduction of Burt Lancaster, who I usually love, the film goes awry for me. His acting is so over the top that I have to assume he was directed to play his character this way.

Briefly the story concerns a Sicilian family living in the American South. When the husband, the love of Serafina's life dies in an attempt to evade the cops, she is inconsolable, quite mad with grief. It is not until Lancaster comes along that she comes out of it. There's lots more too but that's the general plot.

I have never seen so many women dressed in slips. I have to assume either this was true in the South before AC, true among Sicilian women, true for the mid-fifties or a signature of Anna Magnani.

Directed by Daniel Mann who also did the similarly over- the- top COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA, I think taking it down a notch and bringing it off what felt like a stage production would have strengthened it. Too often it felt like characters tossing dialog in a enclosed place. The outdoor scenes were terrific.

Opening Credits: SHAMELESS

How Important Are Endings to You?

The ending of a book is very important to my husband. If I ask him midway through how a book is he will always claim not to know yet. For me a good ending is a bonus. I make a decision about a book long before I reach the end. And I don't keep reading if that decision isn't favorable.

BEING DEAD has one of the best endings because it is completely inevitable yet comes full circle.
Here is a description of it from PW.

 Being Dead by Jim Crace - This is the story of a loving couple, dead from the novel’s very first page on a beach. As their bodies decompose, we learn of their courtship, thirty-year marriage, and murder. Their end is at the novel’s beginning—and detailed gruesomely, painstakingly, throughout. And yet, as the waves continue to crash, the shells and fragments of mollusks and fish and birds are arranged and rearranged by the surf, the reader can’t help but feel haunted by a sense of eternity. The thing about this ending, what makes it beautiful and unique, is that nothing ends. The most final of finals—death—has come and gone. The end and the ending is really just a point along the great cycle, in the very grand scheme.

What is your favorite ending and how important are endings to you? 

They Love it but You Can't Preorder It. What's Wrong with This?

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, June 2014: Megan Abbott writes about the madness of adolescence better than anyone. She seems to understand teens’ urgent rush to grow up, to try on adult masks and costumes and play adult games. But she also knows: in the big game of pretend, there are often grown-up consequences. In the spooky town of Dryden--“the cloudiest city in the state,” we’re told--high school girls are getting sick, one by one, seizure by seizure. Is the lake toxic? Is the drinking water poisoned? Are vaccinations to blame? Is it the sex? Paranoia begets fear and, fueled by texted whispers and internet rumors, a frenzy roils into a contagious hysteria. Characters’ legs and hands shake. They feel a flutter in the chest. Their chins quiver. It’s hard to breathe. “Don’t you see?” says one parent. “It’s just begun.” The story of what’s afflicting this tainted school is told through the entwined points of view of a divorced teacher, his fast-maturing daughter, and his stud hockey player son, all three tied in their own mysterious way to the source of the fever. The real fever here is the lust, hormones, jealousy, and fear of being a teenager. And high school is its breeding ground, the place that can mark us for life. As one teacher observes: “That’s what high school does.” The Fever is a brilliant and chilling tale of the bewildering age when everything--friendship, love, sex, revenge--feels “new and terrifying and significant.” To survive it? It’s heartbreaking. --Neal Thompson

But sadly, you can't preorder it from Amazon. Order it elsewhere.

Writing Advice: Stan Lee

Saturday Night Music: SHE, Elvis Costello

What is the Most Influential Song of All Time?

THE ATLANTIC asked this question in the June issue and got answers from celebrities that included
WE SHALL OVERCOME, RESPECT, ST. LOUIS BLUES, LIKE A ROLLING STONE, WEST END BLUES, HEARTBREAK HOTEL, WALK THIS WAY, SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRITS, DREAMS, AFRICA, AMAZING GRACE and SURFIN' BIRD.

Now I guess your choice depends on how you read the question. Do they mean influential in music, influential in culture, religion, in the U.S? What?

I think a case can be made for this...




and for this...

and for this

What about you?  What song do you see as the most or at least very influential?




"THE ENEMY ADVANCES" is in the latest issue of ALL DUE RESPECT. Thanks!

How About a Dance Scene: WEST SIDE STORY

Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, May 30, 2014

 

FFB: SPECIAL

THE FEMME FATALE

July 12, 2014

I will be gone from 9-5 today. Latecomers will be seated then. 

The Plastic Nightmare by Richard Neely

Ed Gorman's newest book is SCREAM QUEENS AND OTHER TALES OF HORROR

 

I've written here before about Neely. He wrote non-series crime novels that pretty much covered the entire range of dark suspense. I mentioned that in the best of them the weapon of choice is not poison, bullets or garrote. He always preferred sexual betrayal.

Plastic is a good example. Using amnesia as the central device Dan Mariotte must reconstruct his life. Learning that the beautiful woman at his bedside all these months in the hospital--his wife--may have tried to kill him in a car accident is only the first of many surprises shared by Mariotte and the reader alike.

What gives the novel grit is Neely's take on the privileged class. He frequently wrote about very successful men (he was a very successful adverts man himself) and their women. The time was the Seventies. Private clubs, private planes, private lives. But for all the sparkle of their lives there was in Neely's people a despair that could only be assuaged (briefly) by sex. Preferably illicit sex. Betrayl sex. Men betrayed women and women betrayed men. It was Jackie Collins only for real.

Plastic is a snapshot of a certain period, the Seventies when the Fortune 500 dudes wore sideburns and faux hippie clothes and flashed the peace sign almost as often as they flashed their American Express Gold cards. Johnny Carson hipsters. The counter culture co-opted by the pigs.

The end is a stunner, which is why I can say little about the plot. Neely knew what he was doing and I'm glad to see his book back in print. Watching Neely work is always a pleasure. This was turned in the movie "Shattered" which pretty much ruined the book.

SERIOUS INTENT, Margaret Yorke

Back in the day when I gobbled down crime fiction, or mysteries as we called it then, 3-4 a week, one of my favorite writers was Margaret Yorke who always seemed to infuse her stories with a little bit more insight than other writers of her era. Maybe not quite a psychologically astute  as Margaret Millar but along those lines. Yorke died in 2012 after a hugely productive career. Some of her books feature Dr. Patrick Grant, a college dean, but many are standalones.

One of my favorites is SERIOUS INTENT.
  
No one knows Tom's son is in prison for murder--certainly not the boys who hang around his house. Just down the road, lives Richard Gardner with his second wife and her two sons. No one knows.she is seriously disturbed.All of the boys in this story are affected by absent or poor fathers and engage in petty thefts. Now Marigold Darwin, a retired civil servant, house hunts in Haverscot and begins to discover the intertwined serious intents in this supposedly benign neighborhood. And that lives--including her own are at serious risk. Yorke is very much a "why" writer rather than a how or who writer. And that's my favorite kind.

Yvette Banek, MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY, Winifred Watson
Brian Busby. RMS Empress of Ireland, Canadian Pacific Railroad
Bill Crider, ROOKIE BLUES, Richard A. Lupoff
Martin Edwards, SHADOW OF THE DOWNS, R.C. Woodthorpe
Curt Evan, HAVING WONDERFUL CRIME, Craig Rice
Rick Horton, LAUGHING BOY, Oliver LaFarge
Jerry House, BOOKS OF MAGIC: 4, Carla Jablonski
Randy Johnson, CAPROCK REBEL, Will C. Brown
Nick Jones, THE BLACK HOUSE, Patricia Highsmith
George Kelley, NORTH BEACH GIRL/SCANDAL ON THE SAND, John Trinian
Margot Kinberg, THURSDAY NIGHT WIDOWS, Claudia Pineiro
Rob Kitchin, A DECLINE IN PROPHETS, Sulari Gentill
B.V. Lawson, HANGING DOLL MURDER, Roger Ormerond
Evan Lewis"House of the Seven Dragons" Robert Leslie Bellem
Steve Lewis/William F. Deeck, THE WINTER MURDER CASE. S.S. Van Dine
Todd Mason, NEW WORLD WRITING 16
J. F. Norris, THE GLASS-SIDED ANTS' NEST, Peter Dickinson
James Reasoner, 361, Donald Westlake
Richard Robinson, THE BLUE MURDER, Brett Halliday
Gerard Saylor, PALE CRIMINAL, Philip Kerr
Ron Scheer, LIFE'S LURE, John G. Neihardt
Kevin Tipple/Patrick Ohl, THE DREAM WALKER, Charlotte Armstron
TomCat, THE CASE OF THE BAITED HOOK, Erle Stanley Gardner

Final Scene: THE HOURS